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MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 



A LIST 

OF BOOKS BY 

CHARLES WAGNER 

r 

Waijside Talks 

On Life's Threshold 

The Better Way 

The Simple Life 

My Appeal to America 

By the Fireside 

Justice 



MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

BY 
CHARLES WAGNER 

Translated from the French by Mary Lonise Hendee 




New York 

McClure, Phillips c^- Co. 

Mc7nvi 






LISKARYot CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 
SEP U. 1906 

,^ Cepynjtit intry . 

^ 'i ' ^« ^ 

CLASS ^y XXC, No. 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1906, by 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 



Published, September, 1906, N 



TO 

Cl^eotiore JSoojseijelt 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

GREAT-HEARTED, PEACE-LOVING ; 

TO HIS HOME, AND TO THE PEOPLE OF 

THE UNITED STATES 



TO MY AMERICAN READERS 

WITH the appearance of the American 
edition of this book, I owe my dear 
friends on the other side of the At- 
lantic a word of explanation. They must not look 
for anything new here, because they themselves, and 
their own country, which they know much better 
than I do, are the subject of what I write; they 
will find merely an echo of impressions gathered 
in their midst, by a guest to whom they gave such 
a welcome as few men have ever received. 

If these impressions are characterised by a very 
manifest optimism, it may be attributed, in the first 
place, to the delight of a tour in which everybody 
vied with everybody else in delicate attentions to the 
traveller ; and furthermore the cause may be sought 
in his mental proclivities and moral convictions. 

Certainly he does not belong in the number of 
those who are blind to evil ; quite otherwise. He sees 
it, and suffers cruelly because of it, especially when 
he discovers it among those whom he loves. But 
it seems to him that in the midst of the gloomy 
and tangled forest of human wickedness and cor- 
ruption, the best thing we can do is to join in the 

vii 



viii TO MY AMERICAN READERS 

pursuit of that rare bird, the Good, that the sight 
of it may fill us with the courage and strength to 
put the evil to rout. 

Should this guest of a great people, whom he 
was visiting for the first time and for so short a 
while, have begun by setting himself up as a critic 
and censor of whatever might offend him, seeking 
to bring out the shades in the picture spread before 
his eyes? He thought not. He chose rather to 
dwell upon the lights, which everywhere drew his 
regard and filled him with admiration, in order 
that he might be able to carry back inspiring re- 
membrances to his OAvn countrymen. 

If, in time, new experiences of travel and the 
strengthening of faithful friendships increase both 
his qualifications and his right to speak of things 
American, an opportunity may be given him to 
touch effectively upon certain burning questions 
which are now confronting the conscience of the 
foremost democracy of the world. In that event, 
he will certainly accept it with all the sincerity 
and goodwill merited by this people, to whom he 
has given a unique j)lace in his heart. 

Charles Wagner. 
Paris, May 16, 1906. 



PREFACE 

IN going to the United States^ I had a definite 
object — to come near to the centre of the 
nation's life_, in order to get an idea of the 
inmost sources of its extraordinary activity. The 
observations such an aim renders permissible are 
of so intimate a nature, that a visitor confined to 
the ordinary means of informing himself would 
encounter obstacles almost insurmountable. For me 
the way was everywhere smoothed by entertainment 
in private homes. I did not go to visit a land but 
to live among brothers, and it is that which gives 
these impressions their significance. 

In recording them I have been reduced entirely 
to the resources of memory, not having found time 
to make notes; but, fragmentary as they are, my 
heart would not have acquitted me unless I had set 
them down. I offer them now in a twofold trib- 
ute to my fellow-countrymen and to all my Ameri- 
can friends, whose cordial hospitality I can never 
forget. 

Paris, December, 1905. 

ix 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. First Ties 3 

II. The Obstacles 6 

III. Enter Mr. John Wanamaker ... 12 

IV. Out at Sea 14 

V. The Fire Signal 19 

VI. The Awakening in Port .... 22 

VII. On the Pier .25 

VIII. The First City Sights ..... 28 

IX. Escape into the Country ..... 34 

X. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery . . . , 36 

XI. First Speech in English .... 39 

XII. LiNDENHURST .41 

XIII. Out for a Stroll .45 

XIV. A Siesta and Its Sequel .... 50 

• 

XV. A Visit at the White House ... 54 

XVI. A Drive at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson 69 

XVII. A Day at Bethany Church ... 75 

XVIII. Religious Life 90 

XIX. The Bible in the United States . .103 

XX. With the Friends 112 

XXI. The Guest of Israel 119 

xi 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

129 



xu 

XXII. Our Black Brothers 

XXIII. Industry and Wealth . 

XXIV. Relaxation 

XXV. The Public Schools . 

XXVI. High Schools .... 
XXVII. Universities .... 
XXVIII. Mount Holyoke College 
XXIX. Doctor Honoris Causa . 
XXX. A Quaker Reformatory 
XXXI. The Bowery Mission 
XXXII. Lectures and Audiences 

XXXIII. A Lesson Carried from the Blind 

TO Those Who See 

XXXIV. Homes and Hospitality 
XXXV. The American Temperaivient 

XXXVI. Sympathies with France 
XXXVII. An Amusing Little Blunder 
XXXVIII. In the Chicago Stock-Yards 
XXXIX. Dean, My Keeper 

XL. A Vision of Rivers ^55 

XLI. "The Simple Life" Interpreted 

IN Oak 259 

XLII. America's Strongholds .... 263 
XLIII. A Dinner with Heroes .... 270 

XLIV. American Simplicity 279 

XLV. Adieux to Washington . . . .291 
XLVI. The White House Lecture . . 295 



144 
154 
159 
166 
172 
178 
184 
189 
196 
201 

207 
215 
227 
235 
242 
246 
250 



MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 



FIRST TIES 

IT was in 1891, when as yet I knew nothing of 
America save what I had learned from chance 
books, that during a call upon Mme. Blaze 
de Bury I was presented to a young American 
woman, well known in her own country for her 
delightful writings, Grace King of New Orleans. 
She was well acquainted with French, and her 
mind, active, and at variance with tradition on 
many points, was greatly occupied with moral and 
religious questions, as I was then presenting them, 
in the endeavour to bring them into as close rela- 
tion as possible with the spirit of our time. This 
meeting was followed by long talks between us, 
and Miss King became a faithful listener at the 
salle Beaumarchais. She wrote about my missionary 
labours, for an American review, and before leav- 
ing Paris, made me acquainted with Miss Louise 
Sullivan of New York, who like her friend became 
a regular attendant at our meetings. After their 
return home, these two young women did not fail 
to write me from time to time. Grace King brought 



4 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

me into touch with the Outlook and its editor. Dr. 
Lyman Abbott, and translated my American pref- 
ace to " Youth/' the book through which the pub- 
lishers, Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Company, made 
my thought known in the United States. 

When, in 1901, Miss Mary Louise Hendee had 
translated " The Simple Life " for the house of 
McClure, Phillips and Company, Miss King under- 
took the task of writing a biographical introduction 
to the book, and the accuracy of her information 
and the grace of style that distinguishes her work, 
are worthy of all praise. Her preface, wherein may 
be found the history of my thought and a charac- 
terisation of my liberal propaganda of the eternal 
Gospel, is like a banner flung wide. 

To-day, when so many delightful encounters with 
Americans have followed these first acquaintances, 
I take great pleasure in going back to the begin- 
ning of it all. One of my regrets in connection 
with my visit to the United States, is that lack of 
time forbade my penetrating to a point so far dis- 
tant as New Orleans. Let us hope that it is only 
a pleasure deferred. 

After the appearance of " The Simple Life," 
from the McClure house, the points of contact 



FIRST TIES 5 

with America multiplied. I had received many let- 
ters relating to " Youth/' I now received many- 
more about " The Simple Life," and from time to 
time some American, tarrying a little in Paris, 
came to shake hands with me after the sermon in 
the Boulevard Beaumarchais. These expressions of 
sympathy rejoiced my heart, but there the matter 
rested. Things went on in this way till the vaca- 
tion time of 1902, where the memorable speech of 
President Roosevelt at Bangor belongs, a speech 
soon followed by another, in the Masonic Temple 
at Philadelphia, on the occasion of the one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the reception of George 
Washington into the society of American Masons. 
In both these addresses, though in different terms, 
the President expressed the wish that " The Simple 
Life " might be known and read from one end of 
the country to the other, as a practical treatise on 
right living. 

If, then, I have been able to visit America, to 
make the never-to-be-forgotten tour just finished, I 
owe it to America's great President. But first the 
question of this journey had to be decided, nor 
was preparation for it to be devoid of obstacles and 
labour, as I now intend briefly to set forth. 



II 

THE OBSTACLES 

MY career is not that of a man of letters, 
I am not a writer by profession; the 
writer as well as the preacher comes 
after the man in me; and the man is so rooted in 
his family and in his work, that the idea had never 
occurred to me or to any one belonging to me, to 
the members of either my smaller family or my 
greater one, that I could go away for any consid- 
erable length of time. In earlier days, I had under- 
taken trips through France, Alsace, Belgium and 
Switzerland, to preach and lecture, and always with 
very encouraging results; but bereavements in my 
home, and increasing duties in connection with the 
religious, social and educational work of my Paris 
charge, had gradually restricted the number of 
these tours. Besides, the longest of them had occu- 
pied not more than fifteen days, the later ones not 
more than two or three, and they had occurred only 
at long intervals. I had become the man who never 
went abroad in the world, the man whose duty it 
was always to stay at home. So, at all events, my 



THE OBSTACLES 7 

friends at home thought, as did even some of those 
in America. The Craftsman, having heard of my 
projected trip, manifested astonishment at the idea, 
amicable, to be sure, but very real. Leave this man, 
it said, in his normal place; we don't transplant 
full-grown oaks. 

My own mind, however, was clear in the matter, 
for my rule of life has always been to take my 
labour of sower wherever I discover good ground. 
The letters and visits I had received from Ameri- 
cans, had created the conviction within me that an 
immense and receptive field across the sea lay open 
to the ideas for which I lived and worked in my 
own country. Now whosoever is receptive toward us, 
from him we may also receive, all the relations be- 
tween men's minds are based upon reciprocity; I 
was certain that if I had a message for America, 
she had one for me, a message which in its fulfil- 
ment might influence very greatly my activity at 
home. Hence I ought to go, and within myself 
the matter was settled. 

But in making such a decision as this, those 
nearest us should be consulted. I therefore con- 
sulted my parishioners, who understood me and 
gave me God-speed; and then my family, my wife 



8 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

and children; for if children are to be without the 
presence of their father for several months, ought 
they not to know something of why it is? as they 
must suffer a deprivation, they deserve at least to 
know the reason. 

I shall always remember that little family coun- 
cil, in Touraine, under the beautiful cedar trees 
of the Commanderie, the hospitable country-house 
where we were staying. My wife, my two daugh- 
ters, and my little Jean, were beside me. The sun- 
light played at our feet among the moving shad- 
ows of the branches. I explained that though the 
thought of separation from my dear ones gave me 
pain, yet I had such strong reasons for visiting 
America as to make me feel that the voice of God 
Himself was calling me to go. And they all said, 
** Oh, yes, papa, you ought to go, and we will do 
all we can to make it easy for you to be away." 
Then we had a good, short prayer, to give the 
whole matter and ourselves into the hands of God. 
* * * * * 

I had two oceans to cross: the Atlantic and the 
English grammar. Every time hitherto that I had 
ventured into the deeps of English, I had emerged 
discouraged. Impossible to acquire this language — 



THE OBSTACLES 9 

above all else, to pronounce it! But now I was to 
learn by experience what a stimulus to study, or 
to any sort of work, comes from love and necessity. 
Before the project of going to America arose, I 
studied English simply out of curiosity; but from 
the moment the idea of making this tour took pos- 
session of me, I studied out of love, a real and 
deep love for this people as yet invisible to my 
eyes, but whom I foresaw to be worthy of all 
affection. Suddenly the English appeared to me a 
delightful tongue, and to hear it spoken or read 
it became my favourite occupation. My teachers, 
among whom I shall always remember especially 
the Virginian, Mr. MacBryde, had reason to be 
gratified with my assiduity. Yet I had to work in 
the midst of constant interruptions; there was no 
regularity about it, as I was always at the mercy 
of those unforeseen demands which are constantly 
made upon a clergyman, or the call of some im- 
portunate visitor. In the depths of my tribulations, 
I thought of the Jews, rebuilding Jerusalem after 
the exile, with a trowel in one hand and a spear 
in the other. Often at night, after a fatiguing day, 
I felt discouraged ; the English was not going well, 
and I said to myself that I should never learn it. 



10 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

But the next morning I went back to it with re- 
newed ardour. For^ social being that I am, I should 
find it intolerable to travel in a country whose lan- 
guage I neither spoke nor understood; that would 
be condemnation to the role of the deaf and dumb. 
And then, while the general understanding was 
that I should lecture in French, those of my friends 
who were most interested in my projected tour, de- 
clared that unless I spoke English, I should not 
really come into touch with the American people, 
but only with a few exclusive groups. So, at what- 
ever cost, I must conquer the language; for what 
I desired was to reach that promiscuous audience 
in which one finds all the elements of a population. 
Some very prudent ones among my Parisian friends 
said, " Above all things, don't think of speaking 
English in public; you will make yourself ridicu- 
lous " ; and letters from Geneva brought the same 
warning; but I judged it better to defer to the 
wishes of those who wrote : " Speak English to us, 
however poorly equipped you may be, so long as 
you can make yourself understood." So I continued 
to throw myself heart and soul into English. 

While I was struggling on, with new difficulties 
for ever presenting themselves, I received a call 



THE OBSTACLES 11 

from the actor Delorme of the Renaissance Theatre. 
He came to offer me lessons in French diction, 
which he had given to many of my colleagues, both 
Protestant and Catholic. " Retro Satanas! " was 
my reply to him, and I quoted Goethe's words: 
** Yes, a comedian may teach a clergyman, provided 
the clergyman be himself a comedian." When he 
was already at the door, quite grieved at the re- 
ception he had got, he said a few words in English. 
" What ! " I exclaimed, " do you know English } " 
** I not only know it, but I have played Shakespeare 
in the United States," was his answer. *' You are 
the very man I need, after all," I declared, draw- 
ing him back into my office; and then and there he 
gave me my first lesson in English extempore speak- 
ing. He gradually habituated me to the proper 
pronunciation and inflection, and during the vaca- 
tion, in the country, we had sessions of work to- 
gether that lasted from morning till night, during 
which I addressed to my tireless and scrupulous 
auditor, lectures, sermons and speeches of all sorts, 
striving to carry over from one language into the 
other, the whole repertory of my ideas. In my 
leisure moments I spoke English to myself, and 
eventually I thought in English. 



Ill 

ENTER MR. JOHN WANAMAKER 

ONE morning in June, or thereabouts, 1903, 
I received a note signed John Wana- 
maker, asking for an appointment to meet 
me. The handwriting was decided, nervous and com- 
pact. I knew only two things about the signer of 
the note, that he was one of the greatest of Ameri- 
can merchants, and that he was very fond of my 
book, " The Simple Life," of which he had dis- 
tributed innumerable copies. I went to see him, but, 
alas ! we could not talk together ; neither his French 
nor my English was equal to it; yet we understood 
each other. When, in the summer of 1904, we met 
again, we were able to carry on a consecutive con- 
versation in English. 

From the moment my journey was decided upon, 
no one was more helpful to me than Mr. Wana- 
maker. He gave me all the necessary advice and 
preliminary information, and he invited me to spend 
the first fortnight of my sojourn in America at his 

country place, Lindenhurst, to get acclimated. He 

12 



ENTER MR. JOHN WANAMAKER 13 

visited my family and my congregation, and as- 
sured them that he would take care of the pastor 
and the father, and send him back to France safe 
and sound, a promise he did not fail scrupulously 
to fulfil. 

I set sail on La Lorraine, in September, 1904, 
with M. Xavier Koenig as travelling companion and 

secretary. In my cabin, among the letters and tele- 
grams from French friends, to wish me hon voyage, 

was this cable message from Mr. Wanamaker: 
" America welcomes you ! " 



IV 

OUT AT SEA 

THE first day out, I encountered Mr. Levi 
P. Morton, formerly United States Min- 
ister to France, and his family. We had 
already been acquainted for some time; now we 
could talk together at our ease about the imknown 
country whither I was bound. 

Our great modern transatlantic steamships are 
marvels of human skill; the slowest and least com- 
fortable among them would have seemed a " floating 
palace " to our forefathers ; but to me the most im- 
pressive thing about them is the fact that whenever 
one of them sets sail, it is freighted with all the 
social questions — indeed, with all human questions. 
To begin with, it continues upon the ocean our 
class divisions, which are well characterised by its 
state-rooms de luxe, its first and second cabins, with 
their deck barriers, and its steerage. Officers and 
crew might be taken to represent the army in its 
various grades, while the personal servants as well 

as the engineering corps, the cooks, the bakers, 

14 



OUT AT SEA 15 

and the rest, stand for the great host of working 
people. 

I should have been very glad to go about among 
all these folk, especially to have made acquaintance 
with the emigrants, learned their histories, their 
reasons for leaving their native land, and their 
hopes for the future. Seven long days at sea with 
nothing to do but come and go! What harvests of 
information might be gathered from chatting fa- 
miliarly with men, women and children! And why 
did I not do this.^ For a very simple reason: at 
that particular moment, alas ! though in mind I 
was greatly inclined to the enterprise, in body I 
was altogether averse, and from the moment the 
plebeian and humiliating phenomenon that mani- 
fests itself among inexperienced sailors, appeared 
in my case, every vestige of the desire to fraternise 
with my neighbours vanished. A vague, gray misery 
overcame me the second day out, and did not begin 
to diminish until the fourth. During one of my 
lucid moments in this unhappy time, I made a 
horrifying discovery: / had forgotten my English! 
It was good fortune if I even found words to ex- 
press myself in my customary tongue. A few Ger- 
man terms, such as Katzen jammer, stuck vaguely 



16 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

here and there in my memory, like empty picture 
frames left behind in a dismantled apartment; but 
of English, not a trace ! 

When we were six days out, the winds grew calm, 
the clouds broke away, and a warm sun flooded the 
sea and the decks. Immediately the faces of the 
passengers began to clear, and all day long voices 
were heard singing on the emigrants' deck, high 
voices, deep voices, the voices of Italians, men's, 
women's and children's voices, all intermingled. It 
was charming; it bore within it a whole tradition 
of a sunny fatherland, of poetry and of poverty. 
It recalled blue seas, and violet mountains, groves 
of palm and olive, orange and laurel. It was a song 
with a soul. 

The first-cabin passengers had an orchestra at 
their disposal, but the idea of singing, above all 
things, of singing together, seemed never to occur 
to them. I wonder why. 

Its powerful screw beating and cleaving the salty 
waves, ceaselessly the great ship bears us on, our 
bodies, our souls, our destinies, our virtues and 
our vices; all of us sharing a life in common for 
the moment, yet at bottom not by any means " in 
the same boat." There is sadness in the thought 



OUT AT SEA 17 

that all these men can breathe the same air, be 
drawn into this close contact for a number of days, 
that a sudden shipwreck would give their bodies 
the same waves for a winding-sheet, and yet that 
they are no more conscious than ever of their 
brotherhood. A magnificent construction like a mod- 
ern liner is a witness to our mechanical greatness 
and our scientific progress; but surely we may see 
in it striking proof of our moral poverty and social 
atrophy. There are many crossings yet to be made 
before we enter the fraternal city. 

It was night, and I had gone alone into the bow, 
under the stars. There you know that you are mov- 
ing forward; you feel as though a great eagle had 
taken you on its wings, and were bearing you across 
the fields of the air; your whole body is movement, 
your whole soul aspiration. What is waiting behind 
the veil of this western darkness? To-morrow the 
American shores will lie gray along the horizon; 
what manner of men are we to meet there .f* what 
adventures, what experiences shall we have.'* And 
as a man about to enter into the midst of a new 
race, I already breathe their natal air, I divine 
them, I stretch out my hands to unknown friends. 
But all at once, full in the flush of joy at thought 



18 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

of the speedy landing, anguish seizes upon my 
heart, and a mocking voice cries within me: " When 
you open j'^our mouth among these people, they will 
look at one another and ask, * What language is this 
man speaking? * " 



THE FIRE SIGNAL 

FIRES! fires! steady, intermittent; enormous 
eyes, darting flamboyant glances into the 
night; revolving lights, sweeping the hori- 
zon with their sheaf-like rays. Flames and more 
flames, — red, green, a whole symphony of signals; 
like stars, like comets, meteors, flashes of lightning, 
great torches ! What enchantment, to arrive in this 
way, saluted by light in the middle of the night! 
And this light means man. In the vast darkness 
and melancholy silence of mid-ocean, let but a lit- 
tle flickering ray appear, and at once we think, 
there are men ! On all the seas of the round world, 
the twinkling lights of the night announce the pres- 
ence of man. They signal to one another, " Here 
are your fellows." What food for thought in these 
trembling beacons ! Now we are really at the land, 
yet nothing in nature indicates it to our eyes; mid- 
night makes all alike, confuses in one blackness, 
sea and shore, shelving beach and threatening cliff's. 

Were it not for man, we should see nothing but 

19, 



20 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

darkness, fearful darkness, full of dangers. But 
man has made light by which we may trim our 
sails and guide our way; and how many other 
things do we not owe to this light ! Almost all 
man's works speak of humanity, of its poverty or 
its magnificence, its deformities or its beauties, and 
these lights speak of goodwill. They greet us and 
give us information; " Hither is your way," they 
say, " come and welcome ! " They announce the 
dwellings of men, the hearth and the family table, 
populous streets and the hives of the world's affairs, 
where toiling labourers come and go in thousands. 
The vessel slackens speed, and a boat draped in 
lights comes out to meet us, bringing the pilot. A 
smaller boat sets off and makes its way to us, and 
a man boards our vessel; the black shadow of a 
man he seems, a pygmy come to take his place on 
this monster; a fly or an ant, we think, would make 
as much impression. And yet this little shadow 
mounting here is indispensable to the huge ship; 
for this man brings more light. It is one thing to 
navigate the broad waste of ocean waters, another 
to enter a harbour. Here we must have knowledge 
of detail; a specialist is needed, and he is not to 
be replaced by any geographic science or any in- 



THE FIRE SIGNAL 21 

genious mechanism. What a marvel a man is ! The 
man who has just come on board is our guide^ we 
are given into his hand. 

Slowly, gently, as though not to waken the slum- 
bering city, La Lorraine enters the harbour, and 
the engines stop; we are to sleep here, and for the 
first time in a week, the great ship is at rest. We 
take one last look at the lights behind which 
America lies, and go to seek our berths. 



VI 

THE AWAKENING IN PORT 

EVERYTHING is transformed. There are 
no more fires, they have all gone out; but 
it is day, and through the port-hole of my 
cabin I look out upon a charming picture, a green 
hillside, with villas here and there, interspersed 
with clumps of trees. 

Once on deck, a magnificent sight fills our eyes — 
the colossal harbour of New York. The Statue of 
Liberty, that we saw long ago in the Paris dock- 
yard, overtopping all the buildings about, is here 
only a figure of ordinary height, even on its lofty 
pedestal, everything with which to compare it is of 
such gigantic proportions. All sorts of boats are 
moving about, and in all directions. Ferry-boats, 
connecting railroad lines on opposite shores trans- 
port at the same time men, horses, carriages, trucks 
and automobiles, and whole freight trains pass in 
sections, on files of barges. All these craft are 
panting, puffing, steaming, smoking, whistling, sig- 
nalling one another with sirens, and all the products 

2-2 



THE AWAKENING IN PORT '2S 

of the globe are afloat in them, under the flags of 
all the nations. 

On raising the eyes above this movement in the 
harbour, we are struck by the aspect of the city. 
Its tallest buildings are in the business section 
neighbouring on the bay, and from a distance they 
resemble feudal towers. They are very »strange, and 
as you approach you find them positively ugly. The 
idea of beauty is not concerned in these heaps of 
story piled on story; they are tours de force of the 
art of building; and yet I should be greatly sur- 
prised if grace of line is never to be found in 
them. Just as they are, they stand as monuments 
of the commercial power of the United States, a 
power which, compressed within too narrow limits 
at points where it centres, lances upward as columns 
of water burst out of their imprisoning mains. 

And after their kind they are also manifestations 
of the impetuosity that nothing can arrest, and of 
the triumphant genius to which nothing appears 
impossible, that have heaped up testimony to them- 
selves over the whole area of this bustling land. 

At first sight, I frankly confess, the " sky- 
scrapers " struck me as monstrosities, as mush- 
rooms of extravagant growth, sprung from the 



24 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

overstimulated soil of Titanic cities; as abnormal 
excrescences arising out of the fever and folly that 
are the issue of a mad competition for material 
wealth. And there may be something of all this in 
them — a little of everything, good and evil, in their 
origin. For the sake of aesthetics, to which man's 
life should never become indifferent, it may be 
hoped that these phenomenal buildings may remain 
the exception. 

And yet, viewed from Brooklyn, early on a win- 
ter's evening, the colossal range of these Goliaths 
offers a unique sight. The deformity of their over- 
massive shapes disappears in the twilight, and the 
merciful shades veil their bareness. Gleaming with 
all the fires of their thousands of windows, they 
now seem but diaphanous habitations of the toil of 
the night. For hours they shine in all their splen- 
dour and you feel that within them work is at its 
highest tension; then gradually their lights go out, 
story by story, till the wall of fire becomes a wall 
of blackness, pierced here and there by a solitary 
star. 



VII 

ON THE PIER 

BUT I anticipate; we are not yet ashore. 
The whole harbour line of the city is cut 
up into docks like the stalls of a stable, and 
each steamship company has its assigned space. It 
is a work of skill to bring the enormous liners into 
their quarters; they act like great horses that have 
to be mancEUvred backward into their stalls. But 
at length the evolution is accomplished, and the 
gangway thrown across. 

Upon landing, the first person I saw was John 
Wanamaker, and his good, kind face seemed a sign 
of the happiest augury. During the long formali- 
ties of the customs, a group of reporters collected 
around me. It was the first time in my life that I 
had found myself among so many strangers note- 
book in hand, assailing me with questions, and I 
had looked forward to the moment with consider- 
able dread, having always preferred silence and 
obscurity to the somewhat noisy renown procured 

us by the newspapers. But now it seemed the most 

25 



26 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

natural thing in the world to conform to the local 
custom; besides, these journalists interested me, as 
all my fellow-men do. They were of various ages, 
the majority young, and it was an agreeable sur- 
prise to find them so much in earnest. Their 
questions were sensible, pointed but by no means 
indiscreet, and they impressed me as men who un- 
derstood their business and pursued it with scru- 
pulosity. As this is the most to be exacted of a 
man, whoever he may be, I immediately felt myself 
in sympathy with them personally, so that our con- 
versation was full of unconstraint. The curiosity 
with which they observed me from head to foot 
amused me greatly, and before the day was over 
their articles in the papers bore witness that neither 
the rustic cut of my garments nor the Virgilian 
cast of my footgear had escaped them. 

Tradition, seizing upon a detail of one of my 
youthful holidays, had made of me a shepherd of 
the Vosges, occupied quite recently even, in guard- 
ing his sheep, who had come to bring the message 
of simplicity that he had slowly evolved in the 
austere solitudes of the heights. Perhaps people 
were expecting to see me dressed in some uniform, 
which I had come to recommend urbi et orhi, as 



ON THE PIER 27 

the first and visible sign of a return to simplicity, 
and I should have to begin by repudiating that 
tendency to formalism which would draw ideas into 
the realm of material things. My present interlocu- 
tors, however, being quick to understand and really 
desirous of exact information as to my intentions, 
it gave me genuine pleasure to explain to them 
that simplicity lies neither in the dress, the dwell- 
ing nor the table, but that it is a state of mind 
which inclines us to devote life to the pursuit of its 
proper aim, and to renounce whatever bears us in 
other directions. " In what does the simple life con- 
sist for us journalists?" they asked me; "What 
message have you for us } " " A very simple mes- 
sage," I replied. " Report only what is true." 



VIII 

THE FIRST CITY SIGHTS 

I DON'T know what goes on in other minds, 
we all differ so, but the first impressions of 
things work very actively upon mine, and 
they strike specially deep if I have come from 
far into unusual surroundings. So the first morn- 
ing passed in New York found me peculiarly re- 
ceptive. The voyage is short from France to the 
United States, but to one who has never made a 
longer, it is something not to have put foot on land 
for seven days. I was ready to gaze long at streets 
and their trafHc, at the train of vehicles of all sorts, 
of electric cars and steam cars, circulating pell- 
mell, crossing each other's tracks, or running one 
above another. In some quarters of New York, the 
movement of business is considerably more tumul- 
tuous than anywhere in Paris, and it becomes a 
maelstrom in the vicinity of the gigantic Brooklyn 
Bridge, where at the hours when everybody is rush- 
ing to his work or home from it, the human ant- 
hill swarms with the greatest celerity. He who 

28 



THE FIRST CITY SIGHTS 29 

comes suddenly into the midst of this agitation out 
of the calm of an ocean voyage, certainly experi- 
ences a most violent contrast. And what a difference 
for me between these quarters of the city where 
humanity flows in tides, whirls in eddies and pre- 
cipitates itself in cataracts, and the little hidden 
corner of Brittany where I had passed the last few 
weeks, given up to an intense personal preparation, 
meditating like a knight at his vigil, and musing of 
the people beyond the sea! We should never com- 
plain of these shocks that life gives us; there are 
impressive lessons to be drawn from them, provided 
the heart keeps its proper attitude, and men do not 
become for us simply supernumeraries in a spec- 
tacle. What profound human interest the sight of 
strange crowds should inspire in us ! These passers 
bear about with them all the burdens and problems 
of society, are a part of the great human drama 
that is unfolding and determining the destinies of 
us all. The battle is being waged hourly ; and every 
force is at play; to which side does the victory 
tend.^ 

While I am fascinated by the crowd, my eyes are 
also held by individuals, and how many new types 
do I not see here! First I notice in these throngs 



30 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

that are elbowing me^ more black faces than I am 
wont to see. Already, on the dock, I had been struck 
by the powerful build and sinewy arms of the 
negroes; now I was encountering negro women and 
children at every step, samples of the black thread 
that has been woven into American life. Little street 
Arabs, selling their papers — the adult newspaper 
vender is almost unknown — agile and enterprising 
little fellows, leap on passing trolleys, sell their 
wares, and jump off with their pennies. 

Now we are on an elevated train, where you pass 
along at the level of the lower stories of the houses, 
and you pity those who live in the midst of all this 
smoke and dust and noise, and under the eyes of 
the passer. But this same passer is thus given the 
opportunity to see a great many interiors in a short 
space of time. Some of them file rapidly by him, 
but others he may inspect at leisure, during halts 
of his train, and almost pay them a visit. Used to 
making a round of calls at modest homes in Paris, 
I was extremely interested in all these revelations, 
even those caught at a glance ; — in the arrangement 
of the rooms, the style of furniture, the groups at 
table. In the back yards, that stretch out in long 
lines between the rows of tenement houses, you see 



THE FIRST CITY SIGHTS 31 

unquestionable evidence that American housewives 
do a great deal of washing, and keep their linen 
very white. They have a highly ingenious means of 
hanging out clothes from every story. A rope runs 
from a pulley just outside the kitchen window, 
passes over another pulley attached to a high pole 
at the back of the yard, and returns. In the sim- 
plest fashion possible, without stirring a step, the 
laundress hangs her pieces on the line, one by one, 
meanwhile pushing the line out. When the clothes 
are dry, she takes them in by reversing the process. 
The yards are in general without any sort of 
cultivation, but in contrast one is struck with the 
beautiful ivy that often covers the fronts of build- 
ings. This ivy loses its leaves in winter, so that 
it causes no inconvenience from dampness in the 
months of least sun. From the most modest dwell- 
ings to the most elegant, it is found climbing the 
walls, and is everywhere a delight to the eyes. It 
gives the churches an air of familiarity and wel- 
come, it festoons the windows of schools, and is an 
element in an endless variety of pleasing effects. 
New York is red from the brick and stone of which 
its houses are built, and many of its churches and 
public buildings are of a red sandstone that recalls 



32 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

that of the Vosges and the immortal blocks of the 
Strasburg cathedral. 

In the course of this first day, under a beautiful 
sun, Mr. Rowland, of the Outlook , took us in an 
automobile through Fifth Avenue and Central Park. 
This immense Park, over two and a half miles long, 
is in the heart of the city. The ground is rolling, 
even hilly here and there. The trees are left to 
grow naturally, in order to preserve as far as pos- 
sible a rural air, and there are veritable forest 
effects, with such rocks and wildness as is ordi- 
narily only to be found far from cities. The Park 
abounds in birds and in the squirrels that inhabit 
all American parks, gray squirrels, beautiful crea- 
tures, and absolutely fearless — a testimony to the 
treatment they receive from the public. They are 
full of frolic, and are the special delight of the 
children. Some equipages circulate in the Park, but 
they do not compare in number with those that roll 
through the Champs Elysees and the Avenue du 
Bois de Boulogne. 

But we had to turn away from all these new and 
attractive sights the great city had to offer, and 
give our minds to business. A lecture tour is never 
a light matter, surely not when there are many 



THE FIRST CITY SIGHTS 33 

lectures, little time, and a great territory to cover. 
From necessity rather than choice, I had put my- 
self into the hands of a Bureau that was ready 
to make the arrangements and assume the business 
cares of the tour. As I had undertaken this first 
American tour at my own risk and peril, financially 
speaking, I am happy to express my satisfaction 
at the manner in which the J. B. Pond Bureau 
acquitted itself of a task perforce delicate and 
complicated by many difficulties. 



IX 

ESCAPE INTO THE COUNTRY 

SATURATED with noise, I was happy, that 
afternoon, to accept an invitation from my 
publisher, Mr. McClure, to go to pass Sun- 
day at his country place, " The Homestead," at 
Ardsley-on-the-Hudson. 

The Hudson River, with its horizons of hill and 
mountain, is the most beautiful geographic feature 
of the east of the United States. For a long dis- 
tance inland from the sea, the right bank of this 
great river is hemmed in by a veritable wall of 
rock, crowned with forests and overgrown at its 
base with coarse brushwood that draws its nourish- 
ment out of the dust of the ages. On the opposite 
bank is a series of gently sloping hills, very pictu- 
resquely grouped. Along these hills, for more than 
seventy-five miles, villages, small and attractive 
cities, and villas and farms where a great number 
of New York families spend the summer, and 
sometimes the whole year, follow one another in 

almost unbroken succession. Washington Irving has 

34 



ESCAPE INTO THE COUNTRY 35 

given charming descriptions of this country in his 
" Sketch Book/' and has largely furnished it with 
its store of traditions, which are kept piously alive 
in the memory of his compatriots. 

No sooner were we arrived at Ardsley, than 
Mrs. McClure proposed a drive, and its destination 
proved to be Irvington. We followed a wide and 
well-constructed road, which is something rather 
rare in America, and encountered many light ve- 
hicles filled with families out on pleasure jaunts^ 
or belonging to purveyors of some sort, but scarcely 
any automobiles. The system of roads in the United 
States is very imperfect. The people go about by 
rail or trolley; you cannot as in France and other 
European countries, gratify a fancy, if you happen 
to have it, to go from one end of the land to the 
other by automobile, but that fashion of travel is 
restricted to the vicinity of the cities, and the num- 
ber of touring cars is proportionally inferior to 
ours. You do not, however, feel like complaining 
much on this score, when you are driving content- 
edly along a beautiful route that the too frequent 
passing of gasoline machines would transform into 
a realm of dust and pestiferous odours. 



SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY 

WE turn aside to make a little pilgrimage 
to Washington Irving's home, which is 
still inhabited by members of his fam- 
ily, and where many rooms remain as they were in 
his day. A French servant of the household is over- 
joyed to meet some of his fellow-countrymen and 
talk with them. 

Washington Irving rests in the cemetery of 
Sleepy Hollow, which is quite large, but of a beau- 
tiful simplicity. There is not a single pretentious 
monument in it: fine trees and grass plots, granite 
stones, plain and impressive, some roses — that is 
all. This is the general character of the cemeteries 
I saw in America, and in a country of so much 
wealth, the fact is significant. It shows a sentiment 
of respect toward the other life, of equality in 
death, a religious sentiment simple and profound; 
there are no signs of pride or vanity, nor of deso- 
lation and despair. Death is looked upon as it ought 

to be, with resignation and faith. We are often 

36 



SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY 37 

shocked, pained, even scandalised, by luxury in 
cemeteries, a thing so out of place by the side of 
death; or we are terrified by signs of a grief that 
knows no hope. I like the moral atmosphere of 
American cemeteries, and the spirit that breathes 
over their graves uplifts me. It is not all to know 
how to live, we must also know how to die; dying 
is a part of life. The appearance of these ceme- 
teries was to me a declaration of principles. With 
a heart full of remembrances of the beloved dead, 
and with the persuasion that if the dead were noth- 
ing, the living would be a little less than nothing, 
I cling tenaciously to the idea that everything 
which commemorates those who have returned to 
God, should bear the stamp of a lofty and inspir- 
ing humanity. The way men regard the dead and 
preserve their memory, forms an important chapter 
in the art of living, upon which the other chapters 
much depend. On the first evening of my visit in this 
country which I already loved, to which I had come 
less intent upon viewing its greatness, its power 
and its exterior life, than its character, its moral 
force and its inner life, I was happy to receive, 
above the graves of Sleepy Hollow, these comfort- 
ing impressions. How beautiful, how tender, how 



38 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

full of faith^ that soul of a people which began to 
reveal itself to me in this restful place ! Across the 
Hudson the sun was going down. Below us the 
river crept by like a sheet of lava; on its opposite 
bank lay the long giant bar of rock that at this 
hour was blended into a uniform mass of darkness, 
and behind the jagged and molten edges of the 
long cloud banks above it, the sun, flooding the 
west, glowed like a conflagration. I gazed with eyes 
and soul, moved most by the thought that for the 
first time I was seeing the sun set over the land 
of Washington. 



XI 

FIRST SPEECH IN ENGLISH 

TO-MORROW is Sunday/' Mr. McClure 
said to me at dinner that night ; " I 
hope you feel like preaching in our 
little church." 

** Oh, no/' was my answer; " I prefer to listen." 

After church the next day, came a new question: 
*' Won't you conduct a little family service for us 
this afternoon.'' " 

This time it was impossible to refuse, whatever 
my alarm at the prospect of making my debut in 
English, even before an audience of only five or 
six listeners. 

At the appointed hour I came down to the draw- 
ing-room, and found myself in the presence of — 
fifty people ! ** Your family is very numerous," I 
whispered in my host's ear. 

There were some well-known residents of the 

neighbourhood, among them the kind and so truly 

modest Miss Gould, who has found the way to 

make herself beloved throughout the Republic. But 

39 



40 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

I had other things to think of just then than the 
personnel of my audience, and for the first time in 
my life, I think, I could have wished it smaller 
and less distinguished. 

There was no alternative, I had to begin, and 
while paying strict attention to my speech, that 
must have wavered like the first steps of a child, 
I now and then hazarded a glance at the face of 
some auditor in particular. Oh, happy surprise! 
each one appeared to be understanding me. It 
could be seen that they were following the thread 
of the discourse, and I experienced that something 
which tells a speaker his hearers are assimilating 
his thought. 

And so the ice was broken, and after the sermon 
everybody was charming and reassuring. For me 
it was an important event; how many times had I 
not in spirit passed through this first ordeal! Now 
it was behind me, and I was relieved of a great 
weight. Doubt as to the value of the equipment 
which must now serve me daily, had given place 
to confidence. 



XII 

LINDENHURST 

LINDENHURST, the country-seat of John 
Wanamaker, had been chosen in advance, 
as the corner of America where I should 
pass the very brief period of acclimatisation, and 
in fulfillment of the exact instructions left at 
New York by my host, the journey there was a 
triumph of delicate attentions. Mr. Robert C. Og- 
den, a prominent New Yorker and an associate of 
Mr. Wanamaker, received us from the hands of 
Mr. McClure, and conducted us to the Pennsylvania 
Railroad ferry. There he confided us to the care of 
a smiling young man, who had been commissioned 
to conduct us to the Lindenhurst station, at Jenkin- 
town, five miles from Philadelphia. This very well- 
informed emissary held himself ready to answer 
all questions which strangers might pose along the 
way, — though is one a stranger in a land where 
such cordial reception everywhere awaits hin:i? And 
people had written me in their letters : " You are 

not coming among strangers; these are brothers 

41 



42 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

whom you are about to visit. You will be received 
as the country's guest, and at the same time as a 
friend." From a distance one is tempted to take 
such forms of speech for mere politeness, but had 
I better known the country to which I was going, 
I might have assured myself that in this case they 
were expressions of the simple truth. 

At the threshold of his home, Mr. Wanamaker 
received us, and it would be impossible to put more 
perfect grace and more unaffected simplicity into 
a welcome. That day we made the acquaintance of 
part of his family, and the next day, when Mrs. 
Wanamaker returned from the seaside, I saw them 
all together for the first time, though I seemed 
rather to be encountering them all again after a 
long absence. There was no constraint, no ice to 
be broken, scarcely need of making acquaintance; 
from the first moment we found ourselves on a 
common ground of ideas and feeling. 

The next morning, according to the daily custom, 
the head of the family read from the Bible to the 
assembled household, masters and servants, and in 
his short prayer he forgot neither the newly ar- 
rived guests nor their distant homes. This custom 
of family worship, which is still largely prevalent 



LINDENHURST 43 

in the United States, I hold it to be one of the 
most legitimate and salutary kinds of religious ex- 
pression, if it can be kept free from routine and 
made to avoid stereotyped forms, so as to be daily 
the fresh expression of thoughts and feelings which 
arise naturally around the family life; and wher- 
ever I take part in this worship I always taste that 
sweetness which comes to us from communion of 
spirit. To pray with one another, sincerely and sim- 
ply, outside of all prescribed rites, in the pure re- 
lations of a mutual humanity, is the highest form 
of brotherhood. 

Lindenhurst is a large and handsome residence, 
that has received many additions to its original 
plan. Everything is grouped around an immense 
central hall from which the grand staircase mounts 
to a second great hall on the floor above. These 
halls themselves are for habitation, furnished for 
comfort, and adorned with plants, beautiful pic- 
tures, statuary and objects of art, all examples of 
a perfect taste. Half-way up the staircase stands 
an organ. On the first floor are the picture galleries 
full of works by the masters; one of the largest 
and finest of them was built specially for Mun- 
kacsy's two great pictures, Christ before Pilate, 



44 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

and Christ on the Cross. One could hardly apply 
to this home the term luxurious, which rather im- 
plies great cost with the object of pomp and dis- 
play, and the absence of the spirit of home as well 
as of true beauty; Lindenhurst is a dwelling whose 
aspect and arrangements do honour to its master, 
because its master does honour to the dwelling. It 
contains treasures of art; but what above all else 
renders it dear to me and highly to be prized, is 
that it shelters a man whose life is entirely devoted 
to God, to intelligent and helpful work; a man 
whose one desire is to use his means and power for 
the greatest possible good of others. 



XIII 

OUT FOR A STROLL 

I WON'T have any explanations; I am going 
to see things for myself. Of course it is 
quite possible that I shall miss wonderful 
sights without even knowing of their existence; but 
at least what I do see will not have been chosen 
for me_, or arranged by some clever cicerone who 
would have me see things as he does. It is in this 
way that I have planned to explore the vicinity 
of Lindenhurst to-day, and Philadelphia and Amer- 
ica on the morrows. 

The grounds of the mansion are very attractive, 
but of limited extent, following the principle of 
their owner that no more should be spent upon any- 
thing than is justifiable. The gardener who showed 
me the greenhouses and the collection of orchids, 
drew my attention to the fact that this collection is 
incomplete. Here was the principle again, and one 
worth the rarest orchid. 

I pass out of the grounds and wander over a 

beautiful undulating country. Between the hills are 

45 



46 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

deep ravines where capricious streams flow, that 
slumber to-day and to-morrow wake up raging, to 
have a savage game at uprooting trees and sweep- 
ing away bridges. Only three days ago they were 
disporting themselves after this fashion, but where 
is the torrent now? It has vanished, like a 
naughty boy after playing a bad trick; but it 
has scattered right and left the unhappy victims 
of its terrible amusements. There is something 
fantastic about the meteorology of this country; 
rapid leaps of temperature, wind storms and at- 
mospheric eccentricities generally, are the order of 
the day. 

On both sides the road, in whichever direction 
one turns, are country homes, of stone or wood, 
chiefly of wood. They stand under beautiful syca- 
mores or other large-leaved trees, maples predomi- 
nating. These last trees, which are found every- 
where, have this in common with our birch, that an 
abundant sap circulates in them in spring-time; it 
is drawn off" in the same manner as the sap of the 
birch, and made into a delicious syrup, of which 
the Americans are very fond, and which they eat 
for breakfast with pancakes. 

The grounds of these country houses are very 



OUT FOR A STROLL 47 

seldom enclosed, an arrangement I had already 
noticed in New York State. Their owners do not 
rigorously mark the limits of their land with walls, 
fences or hedges, as is the custom in Europe, 
where the altitude of the barrier often cuts off all 
the view; and nowhere in America did I see any 
of those garden walls whose height, an affront in 
itself, is made more offensive by bits of broken 
glass and necks of bottles bristling on their tops. 
Such an armament is an anti-social demonstration, 
and must, I think, arouse unkind feeling against 
the proprietor, if not the wish that he may be 
robbed. 

Country houses, large and small, often follow 
one another for miles along these roads, without 
being separated by anything more than a little 
hedge or a grass-bordered path. There is grass 
everywhere, a fine and close turf on which the peo- 
ple have their outdoor games and sports. The man 
who walks for the love of it, is rarely encountered 
in America; the charm of his existence is seem- 
ingly unknown, and the cane, inseparable com* 
panion of a stroll, is scarcely to be seen; but to 
make up for this, you find everywhere, in the out- 
skirts of cities, on the grounds of residences, and 



48 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

in the parks, men, women and children playing 
various games, that generally demand much skill, 
and include much movement, many outcries, and 
often a veritable intoxication of the joy of combat. 
From his first day there, the visitor in America 
observes that the people turn to movement and 
freedom for their pleasures. My friend Joseph 
Elkinton, a resident of this hilly country about 
Philadelphia, whom I saw enjoying the autumn 
sports at his home, wrote me after Christmas: 
** You should come back to see us now. Every- 
thing is covered with snow, and all the water is 
frozen over. In our leisure time we slide down- 
hill or skate; you would think us a lot of Es- 
quimaux.'* 

A thing which greatly puzzled me was to see so 
few gardens, properly speaking. There are flowers 
around the dwellings, roses mingle their colors with 
the green of vines, but the garden is generally ab- 
sent; that vegetable garden so dear to the French- 
man, that little corner of his yard where the sub- 
urbanite mingles with the beautiful and graceful 
rose the useful parsley and onion, you may search 
for in vain in America, save as an exception. But 
they are very pretty, these suburban American 



OUT FOR A STROLL 49 

homes, with their verandas and their shining win- 
dows framed in ivy or wild vines; and from their 
physiognomy, which has much to say to the passer- 
by, I, passing and musing, conclude that they must 
be the homes of very worthy people. 



XIV 

A SIESTA AND ITS SEQUEL 

IN order to ramble about without really getting 
lost — a thing that is always disagreeable — 
after you have reached a certain distance 
from the point to which you wish to return^ it is 
necessary to follow the rule of turning the cor- 
ners uniformly either all to the right or all to the 
left. On this occasion my old system brought me 
back, at the end of some hours, to the grounds of 
Lindenhurst. One isn't a rustic and a gardener for 
nothing, and in this new land every plant inter- 
ested me, even the roadside weeds; I enjoyed 
brushing against the same clover and plantain 
along the paths of the New World as border the 
European ways, they smiled up at me like old 
acquaintances; and in the garden I had now en- 
tered the cultivated plants attracted me no less. 
But I had reached a sort of rotunda where garden 
chairs invited me to rest. Why not do it? The air 
was mild and the tramp had been long; and I was 

soon asleep, my last impressions being of a gentle 

50 



A SIESTA AND ITS SEQUEL 51 

breeze that rocked the leafy cradles of great clus- 
ters of purple grapes, and swung the golden pears 
on the drooping branches. 

When I awoke, a little garden table stood be- 
fore me, all spread, with leafy plates heaped with 
fruit. The hands of children were easily detected 
in its arrangement, but where were the good fairies 
whose little fingers had bestowed their gifts so 
discreetly ! 

My amazement had witnesses, and witnesses in- 
capable of concealing their emotions; smothered 
laughter escaped from behind a clump of bushes, 
and soon I saw coming toward me a little dark- 
haired girl of seven or eight, who might have been 
the gardener's daughter, and a fair child of the 
same age, with great blue eyes, and golden curls 
falling about her shoulders, who plainly belonged 
to the great house. 

We were not long in making friends. I ate the 
delicious pears and the grapes with the flavour of 
muscatel, meanwhile delighting myself in the Eng- 
lish of these fresh voices. I told a story and they 
begged for *' one more '* until it grew into a series. 

" Will you come to take tea in my house .^ " the 
child with the blue eyes asked at last. 



52 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

" With great pleasure; and at what hour? " 

Five o'clock was set. 

At the appointed time, Mary came to take me 
by the hand and lead me to her house. For she had 
a house, out under the trees; a doll's house, but 
large enough for a visitor to enter. With the aid 
of inclination and the exercise of some strategy, I 
succeeded in getting through the door, and stow- 
ing away my legs somehow under the pretty little 
green table. We launched into conversation, and the 
charm of childhood had me captive. 

Through the window the forest could be seen, 
with squirrels darting fearlessly about, and the 
sun's rays, sifting through the branches, danced 
over the white cloth with the shadows of the leaves. 
In the perfectly appointed little room there was a 
real buffet and a real table-service, and a num- 
ber of dolls, of irreproachable manners, kept us 
company. 

We chatted like two grown people or two chil- 
dren, as you will; for no one else in the world has 
the gravity of a child; the rest of us are always 
disquieted by something or other in the back- 
ground. The child lives his life openly, and takes 
it with absolute seriousness, and well is it for 



A SIESTA AND ITS SEQUEL 53 

grown-ups if they remain children or become chil- 
dren again. One of the joys of my tour was this 
five-o'clock-tea at Mary\' house. Could I, before 
leaving her, refuse to tell another story? Certainly 
not; so I told her one story more, and it was a 
moment of exquisite peace and contentment. Surely 
the child's pleasure in hearing the tale could not 
have been greater than mine in watching her as 
she listened with her whole soul, listened as the 
wood listens to the brook and the flower to the bee. 



XV 

A VISIT AT THE WHITE HOUSE 

AS far back as the end of July, the Presi- 
dent had invited me to the White House 
for September 26th^ " to dine and spend 
the night." I had often anticipated this meeting; 
now I was on the eve of it. I was really going to see 
the man whose personality had won him such warm 
sympathy and sincere admiration throughout the 
entire world; and the proximity of the interview 
brought me both joy and trepidation. What im- 
pression should I take away from this personal 
encounter ? and he — what would he experience upon 
seeing face to face the man whom he had been 
pleased to honour from afar as a sower of seed and 
disseminator of ideas.'' 

I re-read certain passages of his books, refreshed 
my remembrance of his deeds, and recalled the 
contents of his kind letters — every one of which 
had been an event for me — that I might have in 
my mind a definite picture of the man I was now 

to meet in his home. 

54 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 55 

So disposed, I arrived at tiie White House, 
toward the end of the afternoon, on that day in 
late September. The presidential residence is a 
building of the Greek order, on simple lines, en- 
tirely white, and situated in the midst of immense 
lawns and gardens. Beyond is the Washington 
Monument, in the form of a colossal obelisk, its 
smooth shaft springing upward like the symbol of 
a great idea. The White House is entered like a 
private dwelling; there are no sentries; the main 
effect is that of simplicity, and to me this entire 
absence of pomp was more impressive than all the 
majestic exhibitions of authority I have seen about 
the residences of sovereigns. It is, however, the 
testimony of many of its former occupants that 
as a home, and for comfort, the White House leaves 
much to be desired. But it has become a historic 
building, and no splendid residence, no palace, 
however rich and beautiful, could replace it. 

A servant conducted me to my room, and toward 
eight o'clock I was informed that the President had 
asked for me. 

I found him with Mrs. Roosevelt in one of the 
drawing-rooms of the first floor, which contains the 
portraits of former presidents. He came to meet 



56 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

me with outstretched hands, and a moment after- 
ward we were at table, four in all, including the 
President, Mrs. Roosevelt, and Mrs. Roosevelt- 
West of New York. It was to be a little friendly 
dinner. 

" Where are the boys? " asked the President. 

" They are on their way to bed," some one 
answered. 

" Never mind, let them come and say * How do 
you do ? ' to Mr. Wagner." 

And I see two young boys coming in, from nine 
to eleven years old, evidently tired out after a 
long run, their eyes foretelling sleep. 

" I've a very important question to ask you," I 
said to one of them. " Do you sleep with your 
hands open or shut? " 

** I don't know," he replied, " as I'm asleep." 

The President laughed heartily at this answer, 
which was of course the only good one to make, 
and the little fellows hurried off to bed. 

" We would rather have received you at Oyster 
Bay," said the President. " That is our home, 
where even now we pass several months every year. 
You would have seen three families of our rela- 
tives, too, who live near us, and all the children 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 57 

together^ theirs and ours^ a troop of seventeen." I 
expressed my regret at the loss of so charming an 
opportunity, and the hope that some good day it 
might offer itself. 

With my first salutation I had conveyed to the 
President of the United States the personal greet- 
ings with which our own president, M. Emile Lou- 
bet, had graciously charged me when I went to pay 
him my respects before leaving France. Now the 
conversation turned upon various subjects of in- 
terest to us — the education of children and the 
cultivation of the public spirit; social questions; 
international relations and international goodwill; 
matters of religion. We spoke French, German, and 
English in turn, and once, after comparing our 
repertoires of German poetry, we recited passages 
from different Lieder, especially from " Vater, ich 
rufe dich." 

In the matter of family sentiment I found the 
President full of tenderness and filial respect. 
When he spoke of the home, it was with emotion, 
almost with tears in his eyes. He called it the key- 
stone of humanity. Here I immediately recognised 
the man of heart, of a fundamental human fibre 
wonderfully sensitive and strong. Speaking of his 



58 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

religious sentiments, he said: " I am very much 
attached to my old Dutch Reformed Church, and 
at the same time I belong to the Church Universal." 
Where public spirit is concerned, nothing that 
might contribute to the strengthening of mutual 
goodwill and the cohesion of the country's citizens, 
finds him indifferent. Endowed with a mind of rare 
penetration, to which every sort of mental finesse 
is familiar, his chief interest is nevertheless in 
practical ideas, ideas that are to the mental and 
spiritual life of the people at large what bread is 
to the life of the body. He is fond of repeating 
the thought that what is necessary to the health 
and strength of a people, is much less the existence 
among them of a few isolated characters of ex- 
traordinary greatness, than a good general mean 
of public spirit. Backbone and energy, a sense of 
social responsibility, a determination from the be- 
ginning to march straight ahead without permit- 
ting one's self to be turned to right or left — these 
things are what he appreciates most highly in a 
man; and he would have him add to them that 
broad-minded attitude toward others which betrays 
itself in forbearing to exercise all one's own rights, 
out of consideration for one's neighbour. 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 59 

No one could express himself in more sympa- 
thetic fashion with regard to a people than did 
the President, in several instances, regarding ours. 
He believes that with a little more clear-sightedness 
the civilised nations of the present time would have 
a good chance of avoiding war, and of regulating 
their affairs in accordance with the principle that 
the fundamental interests of the nations are iden- 
tical; and if four or five of the most powerful 
among them should arrive at the establishment of 
that amicable understanding which seems already on 
the way, he thinks they might even prevent others 
from disturbing the universal peace. 

I shall always remember his saying: " Your 
books make me feel more clearly than ever, that 
fundamentally there are just the same needs for 
us on this side of the water as for you on the 
other. We are all alike at bottom, in needing to 
cherish the same virtues and war on the same evils. 
The brotherhood of nations is no empty phrase." 

I would that I might fix here the physiognomy 
of the President, as I saw it; his extraordinarily 
mobile face is rebellious toward the camera or the 
brush. His portraits all play him false, showing 
his face at rest. No one who hasn't seen him can 



60 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

picture him as he is, for everything that he says 
is accompanied by its corresponding facial expres- 
sion. There is one word in particular that he often 
uses, and always with its typical play of features 
— the word exactly. He is alive, and puts himself 
simply and wholly into every manifestation of 
himself. 

His greeting is genial and direct; not a sign, 
even the slightest, of the grand personage. And 
this is not a mere democratic simplicity; it is a 
broad and hospitable human simplicity. You feel 
that he is a man who would be at home with all 
classes, the peer of the highest, the brother of the 
humblest. It brought joy to my heart to find him 
like this, for to be natural, without pretension, free 
from the petty care that some men take to bring 
their person into relief, is the sign of true greatness. 

The President of the United States is, quite 
simply, a man, one of the members of the race 
that do most credit to our old human family. He 
gives the impression of concentrated force, of a 
spring at tension. You feel that he is ready at any 
moment for a supreme effort, to expend himself 
in any cause that demands it. Above his work-table 
he is pictured on a horse that is leaping an obstacle. 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 61 

It is the image of his fine temperament — generous, 
brave, daring, devoted even to the point of sacri- 
fice. Here is a man who will never retreat before 
anything, unless it be evil-doing; for he is as 
scrupulous as he is determined and brave, a leader 
who obeys the inner law. This chief of a repub- 
lican state, armed by its constitution with more 
authority than most sovereigns enjoy, has the sen- 
sitive conscience of a child. He is — to sum it up 
justly — an honest man. He will never be made to 
follow crooked paths; whatever end he chooses to 
pursue, you may be sure that he will move straight 
toward it. 

Moreover, he is clear-sighted, without illusions; 
he knows life and men with their underhanded 
ways. And yet, seeing things as they are, he be- 
lieves in the ultimate victory of the good; but he 
knows that the price of this victory is a daily 
struggle against the elements of destruction. He 
has done much, and thought much. His body, sup- 
ple and warrior-like, equal to the greatest fatigue, 
inured to hard privation, is at his service, like a 
good steed perfectly responsive to its master. Even 
when he is quietly seated conversing with his 
friends, he has not the air of a man taking his 



62 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

leisure; his repose is a preliminary to action. He 
knows that combat is the law of life, but he will 
never fight any other than a good fight; and that 
is why this warrior is a peacemaker. Those who 
accuse him of imperialism do not know him; his 
patriotism has nothing aggressive about it, it men- 
aces no one. If he would have America strong, it 
is that she may not be at the mercy of the good 
pleasure of others, and the people are with him 
in this matter; pacific but invincible — such is their 
character. In one of his addresses the President 
has said: "We hold that the prosperity of each 
nation is an aid not a hindrance to the prosperity 
of other nations." 

To me it seems an extraordinary privilege to 
have been able to pass long, restful hours under 
his roof, in open-hearted converse with a man of 
his worth; and for those everywhere who interest 
themselves in the destinies of the human family to 
find at the centre of the life of a great people, a 
people whose influence makes itself felt to the ends 
of the earth, a character of this metal, a heart of 
such kindness, an intelligence so broad and so rare, 

may well strengthen a world-wide confidence. 
» * * * * 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 63 

After dinner, on this night of mild airs and clear 
moonlight that fell caressingly on the stretches of 
lawn and trees, and threw into relief the white 
shaft of the Monument, the talk was prolonged 
on a balcony overlooking the gardens. The Presi- 
dent introduced a caller who had just arrived, say- 
ing, " Here is one of my fellow-labourers, who has 
come to confer with me about affairs of the elec- 
tion. . . . We have some fighting to do." He had 
already said, in allusion to the campaign, which 
was then at its height: " If I am elected, I shall 
remain with satisfaction; if I am not, I shall quit 
my post with the conviction of having done my 
duty." After a few moments the President and the 
newcomer withdrew. 

In the family drawing-room, where Mrs. Roose- 
velt had now begged us to go, the first word of 
the ladies was, " Let us speak French ! We love 
your language ! " And indeed they spoke it with 
perfect ease. The conversation turned to France, 
to many sides of our national life little known and 
very attractive — our family life and other good 
things of which foreigners are quite ignorant. Per- 
ceiving that my questioners were interested and 
pleased with what I could tell them, I said: " But 



64 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

I am quite ready to give you a real lecture on these 
subjects, just you two ladies alone, at the first 
favourable opportunity." " Oh, no," replied the 
President's wife, ** for such a lecture as that we 
should invite a lot of people — all our Washington 
friends who could enjoy a lecture in French. And 
what would be your title.''" "Simply this: 'Un- 
known France.' " 

It was agreed that I should give this lecture, 
upon my second visit to Washington, at the end 
of my tour, in November. Then the conversation 
took an intimate turn. I was asked about the mem- 
bers of my family and the ages of the children. 
When one is far from his dear ones, he experiences 
a great pleasure in talking about them. Then 
Oyster Bay was spoken of and the President's chil- 
dren, and I saw a number of artistic photographs 
from which it was easy to get an idea of the life 
of charming simplicity lived in this home. 

At breakfast next morning, the President said: 
** I am in the secret of what you plotted with the 
ladies last evening — a lecture at the White House; 
but aren't we to have a public lecture in Wash- 
ington } " 

" Yes," I replied, " it is this moment being ar- 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 65 

ranged. The Young Men's Christian Association 
has the matter in hand." 

*' The gentlemen will do well to choose a lecture- 
hall that holds a large audience," said the Presi- 
dent, " and I will go myself, to present you to 
the public.'* 

After breakfast we took a walk in the gardens, 
where I saw the rose-bushes to which Mrs. Roose- 
velt herself gives some care, and our conversa- 
tion was continued. Here I encountered again the 
younger sons of the President, with whom I had 
had a word already that morning, in the hall, where 
I found them carving heads out of chestnuts. 
One of them had said, " It is you, Mr. Wagner, 
who wrote some droll stories to amuse children. We 
don't understand French, but mamma has trans- 
lated them for us." Now, bareheaded, in simple 
blue cotton blouses and with books under their 
arms, they were on their way to the public school. 

Toward nine o'clock, I left the White House, 
setting out with my memory full of the day there 
and going over and over its details. Dr. Radcliffe, 
pastor of the church that President Lincoln used 
to attend, was to take me for a drive and some 
sight-seeing about Washington. When he showed 



66 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

me the interior of his church, I noticed that its 
furnishings had just been renewed. The seats were 
almost aggressively fresh, save one old one remain- 
ing among them, that seemed, in its more sombre 
colour, to stand out from the rest; it was Lincoln's 
seat. 

A little while afterward, visiting the magnifi- 
cent Congressional Library, we found ourselves in 
the great rotunda whence long galleries filled with 
books radiate in every direction, and we stopped 
to examine the ingenious mechanism by means of 
which a borrower receives his book a few minutes 
after asking for it. A religious silence reigned in 
these studious spaces filled with readers, some of 
whom, to cut themselves off more completely, were 
holding their heads between their hands, and stop- 
ping their ears with their thumbs. All at once I 
espied, on an upper balcony, a party of French 
savants on their way from St. Louis, and in the 
midst of the group I distinguished the black beard 
of my friend Jean Reville. The pleasure of see- 
ing here in such unexpected fashion, this brilliant 
cluster of learned compatriots, drew from me a 
spontaneous cry of surprise and satisfaction, which 
noisy demonstration of patriotic joy created some 



AT THE WHITE HOUSE 67 

little scandal among the readers, absorbed in mute 
attention to their books. I offered the amende hon- 
orable to the librarian, who had witnessed the vio- 
lation of scholastic sanctity, and the indulgent 
smiles with which it was received, showed that my 
transgression had been forgiven. 

* -x- * * -x- 

My impression of Mr. Roosevelt was the same 
first and last, whether I looked on him with my 
own eyes, or felt his influence abroad in his country. 

The people love their President. There is not 
a royal house, even among the oldest and those 
most worthy of the affection of their subjects, 
which receives so deep and general sympathy as 
do the young President of the United States and 
his family. He is respected by all ages and all 
classes; you might think that he was the chief 
friend of every household. His word has an un- 
precedented authority throughout the country, nor 
is this the effect of a showy and superficial popu- 
larity, but of a calm and legitimate ascendency. In 
the last presidential campaign every effort made 
against him turned to the hurt of his enemies, and 
since his triumphant election, the justice of his 
judgment and his freedom from all political ran- 



C8 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

cour have won even his opponents. Everybody 
knows that he stands for the best of America, that 
he has something better than a political policy, that 
he has an ideal, and that this ideal conforms to 
the noblest traditions of the Republic as well as to 
its most weighty future interests. The country's 
destinies are in good hands. 



XVI 

A DRIVE AT CORNWALL-ON-THE- 
HUDSON 

A T Cornwall-on-the-Hudson lives Dr. Lyman 
/ % Abbott, editor of the Outlook, whose face 
-^ -^^ is one of the most familiar in America. 
Not that it is a typical American face, fresh in 
colour and clean shaven ; picture to yourself, rather, 
the head of an ascetic, a luminous brow heightened 
by the baldness above it, the face, mild and pensive, 
brought into relief by a crown of white hair and 
a long beard — a face it would be easy to imagine 
in the cell of an anchorite. Dr. Abbott is a great 
worker, who has written many books, who keeps 
abreast of the time in philosophy and criticism, 
and who knows Europe well from personal ac- 
quaintance. But his peculiar characteristic, in his 
manner, his speech, and the form of his thought, 
is a benevolent simplicity. The calm and geniality 
of the sage are reflected in his face. 

In August he had written that he hoped to show 

me a bit of American rural life and simplicity, and 

69 



70 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

now, the twenty-ninth of September, we were set- 
ting out on one of the great Hudson River boats. 
We were scarcely out of New York waters, when the 
rain came to join the party; the Hudson shrouded 
itself in fog, and we sailed a gray river between 
invisible banks. Then night came down over it all, 
and it was in complete darkness that a carriage 
conducted us to " The Knoll," the family residence 
of the Abbotts, where from the obscurity without 
we emerged into the white light of a pretty house, 
to be welcomed by Mrs. Abbott's smiling face, the 
exact counterpart of her husband's, with its fine- 
cut features and slight pallor. 

After a long evening passed in the interchange 
of ideas, in a home that makes a veritable intel- 
lectual centre through the members of the household 
and their friends, all devoted to intellectual pur- 
suits, connoisseurs in music and art, and interested 
in everything that makes for good in the world 
of thought and action, we went to seek sleep in 
pretty chambers, roomy and airy, whose only adorn- 
ment was some engravings of a sort good to look 
at on going to sleep or on waking, pictures full of 
meaning, of lofty human sentiment, and of strength 
which they do not fail to communicate. Often, in 



CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON 71 

the course of my life, I have been impressed by 
the fact that houses have souls; the soul of this 
house welcoming us under its roof, was one of 
beneficence. 

The weather's attack of ill-humour passed away 
during the night, and the hills emerged fresh and 
sparkling out of the morning vapours. The sun 
quickly dried the roads, and soon, in an open car- 
riage, with no dust or heat to mar our pleasure, 
we were following an ideal course over hill and 
dale. Dr. Abbott drove, and very skilfully. To his 
beautiful black Arab, clean of limb and light of 
foot, he had harnessed a mate, to ease the journey; 
but he called our attention to the fact that this 
additional horse, driven daily by all sorts of peo- 
ple, was a nondescript livery horse, whereas his 
own little black steed had individuality. 

We had not gone far, when we came upon a 
great estate, the property of friends of the family, 
that lies between two long ridges of land, its 
buildings and its cultivated ground so grouped to- 
gether that we could easily examine both the prod- 
uce and the stock. Entering the stables, we noticed 
on the upper beams, above the heads of the work- 
horses and the rows of harness, inscriptions of terse 



72 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

precepts relating to good management and good 
behaviour. In the dairy, fresh and sweet, the sec- 
tion where most of the milk is kept has no floor, 
but is paved with little polished pebbles. Over these 
flows pure cold water, in which the cans of milk 
and cream stand. 

In general, milk is very good in America, and 
a great quantity of it is consumed, many people 
using it as a table drink. You even find buttermilk 
for sale in restaurants and at railway buffets, and 
its slight acidity is very agreeable to the taste and 
refreshing in hot weather. This also is used as a 
table drink, and both kinds of milk are always 
served fresh, every household, even the humblest, 
having its provision of ice. 

After visiting the cow-barns and pig-pens, we 
came to the garden, but alas ! though it was only 
the end of September, a night of sharp frost had 
cut down all the delicate plants. It was painful 
to see. 

Coming out of the garden, between the soft lines 
of the wooded hills where Autumn was putting on 
her purple and gold in an enchanted atmosphere 
full of the colour of flaming leaves, we felt a great 
peace steal over us. What a contrast to the noise 



CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON 73 

and dust of the city, amid which we were moving 
at this same hour the day before ! We made a brief 
visit to the dwelling, which we found to be most 
comfortable, with great wainscoted rooms full of 
books, and we came out between rows of pumpkins 
that stood a sort of rustic guard about the en- 
trance, and entered our carriage by the aid of a 
large stone serving as an intermediate step between 
the ground and the higher carriage step. This lit- 
tle arrangement, which saves the traveller from a 
too long and painful stretch of limb, is found every- 
where, and is one of the thousand and one details 
indicative of practical savoir-faire. 

A half-hour later we were at Mountainville, and 
in the apple-orchards of farmer Shaw. This good 
man received us at his threshold, and at once con- 
ducted us to an immense orchard on a side hill. 
Along the grassy slope, as far as the eye could see, 
were rows of standard trees weighted with superb 
apples, old gold and rose, or straw colour flushed 
with garnet, all in the utmost profusion. The low 
boughs, stretching out like arms, seemed to say 
** Taste us." A good opportunity should never be 
neglected. As I was eating away with great relish, 
Mr. Shaw said smiling, " I see you like apples." 



74 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

"I'm very fond of them/' I answered, " and yours 
have an exquisite flavour." 

Several months afterward, in my own home, I 
received one day a crate of apples from America. 
Each apple being wrapped in paper, they remained 
as fresh till Easter time as they were on the day 
of their arrival, soon after Christmas, and never 
did I taste them without thinking of the slopes of 
the autumn hills, of the great robin-redbreasts, 
and of the face of Dr. Lyman Abbott, whose black 
horses, under the guidance of his sure hand, car- 
ried us back through a diversity of landscape, 
where now and again, from the summit of some 
hill, we saw the broad silvery stream of the Hudson 
sparkling. 



XVII 

A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 

BETHANY CHURCH, in Philadelphia, in- 
troduced me to an expression of religious 
life in forms I had never hitherto encoun- 
tered, though America was later to furnish me a 
great many examples of it, and I wish to con- 
secrate, by a special recognition, the day, never to 
be forgotten by me, that I passed there, — Septem- 
ber 25, 1904. The day before, I had said to my 
dear friend John Wanamaker, ** To-morrow I want 
to share your whole Sunday," and at half-past 
eight, in the radiant morning sunshine, we were 
rolling over the route from Lindenhurst to Phila- 
delphia. The beautiful morning light clothed every- 
thing with that hallowed splendour which really 
comes out of the faith in our souls, to make Sunday 
seem more beautiful than the other days. I rejoiced 
in this sweet Sabbath light, happy that I had re- 
ceived in my youth an education which made me 

capable of discerning it, and happy that I was in 

75 



76 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

a land where the meaning of these words is under- 
stood — the day that the Lord hath made. Opposite 
me, Mr. Wanamaker, the burden of his prodigious 
business laid aside, was reading over the Bible 
passages which were to be considered that day; 
beside him was a bunch of flowers, which he was 
taking, as his Sunday custom is, to distribute to 
the sick along the way. 

At nine o'clock we reached Bethany church, a 
great building containing audience rooms, an im- 
mense Sunday-school room, and various apartments 
for Bible classes, young people's associations, and 
the " Brotherhood," an association of men whose 
aim is mutual encouragement in righteous living, 
and the better part of whose inspiration is drawn 
from passages of the Old and New Testaments. 
We were received at the door by members of the 
Brotherhood, who took us first to a small room 
where about fifty men were assembled, the leaders 
and members of the great fraternal society. There 
were greetings and introductions, then a brief dis- 
cussion upon subjects of practical religious life. 
Not a superfluous word was spoken, and candour 
and earnestness characterised all the remarks and 
showed in all the faces. You felt that you were in 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 77 

the presence of men of worth, whose chief aim 
was the right employment of life. 

This meeting was preliminary to a large one in 
the great audience room of the basement, with its 
capacity of eight or nine hundred people, which 
was gradually being filled. When we went down 
we were greeted by a stirring hymn sung by men's 
voices in fine accord. I was enveloped in a magnetic 
wave of song that made my whole being vibrate 
in sympathy with its mysterious uplifting force. I 
felt that I was being welcomed into the sanctuary 
of goodwill, of human affection. A call from the 
better land was borne to me upon the wings of this 
song, and like a harp touched by the breath of 
the spirit, my soul began to sing within me. I 
spoke a few words from the heart to all these new 
brothers, who plainly received me from the heart, 
and their resolution to stand by one another in life 
made me delighted to encounter them. Such a body 
of men is a power for good in a city; is not the 
purpose of men to move upward together the most 
irresistible upward impulse in life? But the meet- 
ing was over, and the hour had come for the chief 
service of the morning, in the auditorium above. 

A moving spectacle awaited me there. On plat- 



78 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

forms at opposite ends of the great temple, choirs 
of young girls in white were seated, while the body 
of the church and the galleries were crowded with 
people full of the desire for edification. Sympathy 
and alertness could be read on all their faces, and 
when, after the singing of the choir, I began my 
first sermon in English, in the midst of a silence 
so great that I could hear my heart beat, the per- 
fect kindness emanating from the whole great con- 
gregation came to the aid of the guest who must 
speak a language almost strange to him; it upbore 
him and made it possible for him to give forth, 
and with joy, all that God in His fatherly kind- 
ness had put into his soul for these brothers. The 
pastors of Bethany — dear Dr. Dickey, with the 
record of suffering and the power of loving in his 
gentle and intellectual face, and Dr. Patterson, 
just returned among his people after a long ill- 
ness and a grievous separation — were beside me, 
while members of the church were seated about us, 
and it seemed to me that their will strengthened 
mine; never elsewhere have I been so conscious of 
the aid that man can give to man. Yet I saw most 
of them for the first time. I found a new aspect of 
truth that morning in the familiar words, " Where 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 79 

two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there will I be in the midst of them." 

I had taken my text from the Gospel according to 
Saint John : " Show us the father/' and Jesus' re- 
ply: " He that hath seen me hath seen the father." 
It is a wonderful saying, this reply of Jesus, em- 
bodying the central truth of the Gospel, which is 
that " The place in the world where God is nearest 
us, is a man's conscience through which He speaks 
to us." More fully than in the marvels of creation, 
the splendours of the morning, or the smiling mys- 
tery of the starry sky, the invisible Father has 
shown Himself to us in the eyes of Jesus. Those 
eyes looked out upon the infinite life, and in their 
mild depths might be read what passes in the heart 
of God Himself concerning us. But out of this 
truth another springs: God did not only clothe 
Himself in humanity in the person of Jesus, once 
and in an extraordinary way, but He would always 
reveal Himself in this way. Jesus says in this 
same passage from John : " He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also; " like 
Him, each of his true disciples shows us the 
Father. Every man is a witness, a messenger; but 
alas, there are two kinds of messengers; — there 



80 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

are some who announce and spread night by the 
hardness of their hearts, and the maliciousness of 
their deeds, veiling the face of the Father and fill- 
ing the earth with darkness. Let us not be found 
among them, but in the number of the messengers 
of day, who announce a more beautiful world, and 
increase man's faith and hope; let us show the 
Father ! 

At the end of this radiant morning, full of bless- 
ings, I rested a little; then, at about two, we went 
back to " Bethany " to attend a meeting of the 
Bible Union. Mr. Wanamaker and others, among 
them myself, offered explanations of certain pas- 
sages from Saint Paul, illustrating them from per- 
sonal experience. It was immediately evident that 
to the minds of these men, the Bible is a store-house 
from which a supply of personal force is to be 
extracted; that they were not so much concerned 
with dogmatic questions or scientific exegesis, as 
with vital and individual appropriation of the soul's 
treasure hidden in the Book; and that its pages, 
which have come down from such a far past and 
inspired so many generations of readers, awoke in 
them a profound respect. 

From the room where the Bible class was held. 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 81 

we went down to the great auditorium, into which 
people were pressing in crowds, many young men 
and women among them. The pastors made short 
addresses, and the choirs sang very beautiful 
hymns. These hymns filled me with delight and I 
repeated to myself some of their refrains which 
are prayers in themselves, full of soul and power: 
nearer to Thee. I was impressed with the element 
of life in all these services. Liturgy, the tradi- 
tional element, has its place in them, but it receives 
a daily renewal from active piety; the past and 
the present in worship are mingled in happy 
proportion. 

After the singing of one of the hymns, there fell 
a silence, and for some mysterious reason, at that 
very moment, in the midst of thoughts the music 
had suggested, the feeling had come to me that it 
would be good to hear a solo; when, as though in 
quick response to the desire of my heart, there 
came forward on the platform a lady in white, a 
stranger to me, and in a magnificent contralto, rich 
with an intensity of religious feeling that the finest 
art cannot simulate, she sang, " If I were a Voice." 
Since I heard " Herr, rvie du wilst/' sung by one 
of the sisters in the Moravian Church at Koenigs- 



82 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

feld, I had never felt with like power to move, 
this tone straight from the soul. It seized upon me 
and transported me to those heights of the eternal 
Gospel where the dead are alive, where the blind 
see, the soul's languors are dissipated, sin is van- 
quished, and the hope of the saints is fulfilled. 
The sound of this voice bestowed upon me the royal 
gift of a moment of lofty happiness, a pure and 
divine foretaste of the true life hidden behind the 
obscurities of earth; Schiller's lines sang in my 
memory : 

Wie wenn, nach hoffnungslosem Sehnen, 
Nach langer Trennung bittrem Schraerz, 
Ein Kind, mit heissen Reuethraenen 
Sich stiirtzt an seiner Mutter Hertz, 
So flihrt zu seiner Heimath Hiitten, 
Zu seiner Jugend erstera Gliick, 
Vom fernen Ausland fremder Sitten, 
Den Wandrer der Gesang zuriick.* 

* Even as a child, that, after pining 
For the sweet absent mother, hears 
Her voice ; and round her neck entwining 
Young arms, vents all his soul in tears ; 
So, by harsh Custom far estranged, 
Along the glad and guileless track 
To childhood's happy home unchanged. 
The swift song wafts the wanderer back. 

— Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 83 

The voice whose song woke within me in that 
blessed hour a world of harmony and thought^ was 
one which I have since learned is heard in all sorts 
of environments^ even among the outcast. May it 
do the souls of many of our brothers the good it 
did to me that day ! I believe that such a song can 
touch hearts which simple speech leaves cold, and 
can carry the good news of a more human, more 
self-respecting, and purer life, to hearts that are 
closed to the usual means of approach. 

In a neighbouring part of the building the Sun- 
day-school had meanwhile been coming together. 
Mr. Wanamaker is the superintendent, and his zeal 
is as constant here as in the Brotherhood; it may 
be said that when he is not in Europe, he is never 
away from his post, and this regularity is a fine 
example for the thousands of children belonging 
to the school, an encouragement to the teachers, 
and a wonderful moral support for the pastors of 
the church. When a layman does not pride himself 
on his theology, but is simply a man who learns 
his daily lesson from life, and seeks to show the 
spirit of Christ in his ordinary relations, this co- 
operation is especially valuable; such a man brings 
his active experience into the church, as a happy 



84 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

corrective of lifeless forms and dry dogma. Amer- 
ican laymen are a precious possession to their 
churches, and among those of their number who 
know how to join perfect simplicity of heart to 
the weight conferred by an exceptional position, I 
would give a very special place to John Wana- 
maker. May the coming generations give us men 
of his kind, that the salutary tradition of their 
breadth of mind and active piety may be continued ! 

When I looked out over the Sunday-school of 
Bethany Church, I seemed to see before me a 
garden of God. There were thousands of chil- 
dren, with their fresh faces and in their Sunday 
dress, from little girls and boys of six or seven 
years to young men and women of eighteen and 
twenty. 

The fine Sunday-school room is so arranged that 
it may be divided at will into sections entirely iso- 
lated from one another, thus grouping the pupils 
into classes according to their ages and needs. I 
was specially interested in the very little ones, 
gathered in numbers around a lady who was hold- 
ing their attention by means of large pictures, 
simple and lively hymns, and instruction fit for 
their young minds. These charming tots sang for 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 85 

me with great earnestness a song of welcome, in 
which I distinguished the refrain, " Good-morning 
to you ! " 

When the moment comes for the general lesson, 
the children are all united again by the with- 
drawal of the partitions, a manoeuvre that is accom- 
plished rapidly and noiselessly. In some American 
churches, all these partitions are made to vanish by 
the simple pressure of a button or the movement 
of a lever. When the great room at Bethany Church 
has been again thrown into one, it presents a beau- 
tiful sight. A fountain with banks of flowers around 
it, plays in the centre; the picture of the younger 
generation receiving the teachings of evangelical 
tradition in this attractive place, is altogether 
charming. 

This day, whose peaceful and beneficent light 
recalled to my mind the old psalm, " A day in thy 
courts is better than a thousand," was to end with 
the communion service. We returned to Bethany 
at about eight o'clock; Philadelphia was wrapped 
in the dusk of evening, and a Sabbath calm reigned 
in the streets and brooded over the dwellings ; silent 
groups were making their way toward the sanc- 
tuaries; a breath of adoration was in the air. It 



8G MY i:\IPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

was the twilight hour when in the vast and som- 
bre fields of azure^ those flowers of eternity, 
the stars, begin to open, and inevitably the glance 
turns upward. I crossed the threshold of the 
temple in silence, my soul full of a sense of the 
beyond. 

Inside, the people were quietly assembling, and 
the lights illumined the countless sacred vessels on 
the great table: here were the bread and the cup. 
After a hymn had been sung, my friend John 
Wanamaker said to me, speaking low, " To-night 
you are our guest at the Supper of the Lord; talk 
to us like a brother." 

I have never broken this bread, as the Master 
taught us to do in remembrance of Him, without 
dedicating my soul to all the beloved dead and all 
the living. The great question, the mystery of our 
common life of love and suffering, broods over this 
meal; our vision of the solidarity of the human 
family, on the other side of the barriers of life's 
beginning, and beyond the barrier of the tomb, 
grows clearer when we break the bread with Him 
who moves in our midst, from age to age, in the 
sacred communion of trial and of hope. 

On that night, I felt His presence very near; 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 87 

and likewise there were near me beloved beings 
whom I have lost^ and all the absent loved ones, 
left behind in the far-off home; and the circle in- 
creased with this communion, grew more and more 
vast. For was I not in Philadelphia, the City of 
Brotherly Love, the centre of so much fine tradi- 
tion; was I not in the midst of the sons of Penn 
and descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers? A cloud 
of invisible witnesses gathered in the shadow, above 
the heads of the living. 

When the time came for me to speak, my inspi- 
ration rose out of all these things, and it was given 
me to interpret, as I felt it, the great solemnity of 
the hour. The hearts about me were touched upon 
the golden cord that vibrates under the eternal emo- 
tions, and by a perceptible movement of the Spirit, 
we became verily one soul. 

In the midst of one of those moments of silence 
in which man hears the passing wings of minister- 
ing angels, the venerable pastor rose to pronounce 
the words of consecration which bless the bread 
and wine: "This is my body. . . . This is my 
blood." As in the heart of a thirsty flower-cup the 
dew-drops gather, so these words, refreshing, vivi- 
fying, fell upon .the thirst of souls ; and He who 



88 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

would be all in all, who understands all men and 
loves them, was here saying to us: " My flesh is 
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." The 
fruit of His sacrifice was renewed in us all, and 
each felt himself infused with that virtue which 
strengthens the weak hands and enlightens the un- 
seeing eyes. The secret sources of the higher life 
seemed to be unlocked, and currents of living water 
to flow over the fields of the spirit. 

There are moments when the veil that hides the 
great mystery seems transparent, when by faith we 
seize upon the eternal life at a glance. There is no 
more fear, no more doubt, no more discord, but 
perfect trust, tranquil assurance, and complete har- 
mony. Every valley is filled, the mountains are 
made low, and distance is overleaped: what seemed 
far away is at our side, what we thought lost, is 
found. 

Such moments have an infinite richness; the cen- 
turies are bound up within them; in them we make 
provision of light for periods of darkness. I had 
just lived through at Bethany Church one of these 
eternal moments. What a precious remembrance of 
it I keep, and shall always keep ! How I bless the 
Father who granted it to me, and the brothers who 



A DAY AT BETHANY CHURCH 89 

made it possible ! Like Jacob when he turned from 
Bethel^ I said within myself as I left that dear 
house of prayer: " Surely Jehovah is in this place. 
. . . This is none other than the house of God^ and 
this is the gate of heaven." 



XVIII 

RELIGIOUS LIFE 

ONE of the outward manifestations of re- 
ligious life in a nation is church attend- 
ance_, and at the hours of church service 
the streets are peopled by a crowd of a particular 
aspect. At all times the passers have their psy- 
chology, and we get different imjDressions from 
watching them file by, according as they may be 
out for pleasure, on the way to business, or return- 
ing from the races or a play: the spirit that ani- 
mates them depends upon the occupation of the 
moment. 

/ In American cities, on Sunday morning, the ave- 
nues leading to the churches present a spectacle at 
once of peculiar animation and of calm. All the 
passers seem to be in meditation ; you feel that they 
are conscious of where they are going, and are 
already thinking of what they are about to hear. 
On their way homeward, they still will be think- 
ing; in a word, they have the air of taking very 

seriously the matter that is occupying them. 

90 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 91 

It is unnecessary to point out to me what super- 
ficiality such an observance, once become a habit, 
may possess. The tendency to go with the crowd 
exists everywhere, and the outward religious prac- 
tices of some people may be as snobbish as the 
irreligion of others. I do not hesitate to suppose 
that in these crowds borne toward the churches by 
this movement, there may be found people who are 
there only from habit, the worldly, and hypocrites 
who praise God on Sunday and cheat their neigh- 
bour during the week; the world is the world, and 
men are men; our faults accompany us everywhere 
as well as our good qualities. But having said this 
in order to make it clear that I do not permit my- 
self to be deceived by appearances, I reiterate that 
I was greatly impressed by this Sunday procession 
toward the churches. 

In New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, wherever 
I passed a Sunday, I saw the same thing. Even 
admitting that it is a habit, there are such things 
as good ones, and among the best is that of setting 
a day apart for rest, for remembering that we 
aren't beasts of burden, and for going to join with 
our fellow-men of all sorts and conditions, in giv- 
ing ourselves up to thought about the great verities 



92 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

that govern life_, and the essential courses of our 
destiny, wherein, underneath the surface distinc- 
tions, we are all one. In certain outward habits may 
be found true and faithful manifestations of the 
invisible. 

Religious life in America is represented by a 
multitude of societies and denominations, that run 
the whole gamut of man's ideas and emotions. 
Among these divers groups there exist contrasts 
and contradictions, but at bottom their very num- 
ber is a sign of splendid vitality. One might well 
question whether in small centres several little 
chapels are not a harmful luxury; whether it might 
not be advisable to consolidate, so as to better work 
for an end which is, after all, common; and the 
question daily presents itself with more and more 
insistence; but from the state of affairs as they 
practically exist, observations may be made as fa- 
vourable as these are unfavourable. 

To begin with, entire liberty is the boon common 
to all these churches; no distinctions are made in 
favour of any one of them or to its detriment. 
Church members maintain their worship at their 
own expense, and organise it as to them seems 
good. In the atmosphere of this general freedom. 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 93 

everybody respects his neighbour, and for one 
church to preach against another, is contrary to the 
universal practice; each does the best it can, and 
leaves its neighbour unmolested. Among the differ- 
ent Protestant denominations cordial relations exist, 
and are all the time increasing; they feel that they 
have need of one another, and opportunities for 
fraternising are eagerly sought, while points of 
contact multiply from year to year.* This has not 
alvrays been the case. America has known periods 
of sharp intolerance, and it is quite true that it 
does not require a long search to find actual and 
operative instances of that sectarian bias which de- 
nies those of different ideas a right to the name 
of Christians ; but a tremendous advance has been 
made toward mutual justice and respect for the soul 
and the beliefs of others. Narrowness is becoming 
the extreme exception; breadth of view is the rule. 
America has learned freedom and respect for free- 
dom in the school of history, she has seen whither 
religious absolutism leads, and the national tem- 
perament, such as it has gradually been shaped by 

* Quite recently several associations have been formed, 
whose object is to promote friendly intercourse between the 
clergy of different denominations, and to further the cause of 
religious imity. 



94 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

goodwill^ perseverance, and the desire to be, above 
all things, just to every one, has been slowly rid- 
ding itself of the pest of sectarianism. 

My books had made me known among people of 
denominations the most diverse, so that I was in- 
vited to give lectures and to preach in Presbyterian, 
Episcopal, Methodist, Unitarian, Congregational 
and Baptist churches. I even had the rare privilege 
of speaking in a synagogue, something that even 
in America was an exceptional event, and the day 
before my departure I received a letter from the 
President of a society of Catholic ladies, begging 
me to give a lecture in behalf of one of the society's 
objects. I greatly regretted that the nearness of 
my sailing prevented me from giving a proof of 
sincere and fraternal sympathy for the Catholic 
Church. 

In Protestant churches there is often to be ob- 
served what seems to me a very happy commingling 
of tradition and modern thought. It first impresses 
itself in the aspect of church buildings, in which 
one finds himself enveloped in an atmosphere and 
surrounded by objects wherein respect for the past 
is happily combined with independent and active 
piety. Naturally exceptions are not wanting, and 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 95 

formalism and the barrenness of dogma on the one 
hand, and on the other, the barrenness of ration- 
alism, the absence of the mystical element, and 
mis judgment of the soul of the past, are phenomena 
to be met with here as well as in the old world; 
but the general impression is that of a healthy and 
active piety, respectful toward the spirit of tradi- 
tion, which it perpetuates intelligently in the most 
liberal manifestations of contemporaneous thought 
and feeling. This fact enabled me to arrive at a 
good understanding with those Christians of Amer- 
ica whom I met, and I learned to like them greatly 
for their amenity, their open-mindedness, their 
warmth, and the boldness of their views. Disciple 
of a liberal and popular interpretation of the ever- 
lasting Gospel, having for thirty years expended 
my strength in an effort to put into ordinary and 
comprehensible language the old exalted truths, I 
have sometimes had the misfortune, on our beloved 
older continent, to be taken for an iconoclast, 
whereas night and day I toil at shaping stones and 
putting them into place, in order to do my part 
toward building the new city of the soul. But in 
America all the spiritual joys one experiences at 
being profoundly understood, were so richly be- 



96 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

stowed upon me, that I ought never again to com- 
plain of the little bitternesses inflicted by prejudice 
and narrowness of soul. 

A host of American churches are institutional, 
that is to say, they include very complete social and 
educational organisations. Their vast basements as 
well as adjacent buildings are used for gatherings 
of children and young people, for reading circles, 
sewing classes, and various entertainments. Many 
times I saw tables set in these halls, for friendly 
suppers of the different societies. In such ways the 
members of a congregation are brought together 
elsewhere than in religious meetings, and the church 
becomes a centre where the lonely may find a fam- 
ily, and youth have companionship in an atmosphere 
favourable to its education and progress. At many 
of these social gatherings there is singing; both 
vocal and instrumental music receive great atten- 
tion, and the collections of hymns are very well 
made and suited to the time, giving expression to 
religious feeling in a multitude of stirring and mod- 
ern ways. And the joining of the congregation in 
the singing of the choirs at Sunday services, pro- 
duces a result that filled me with admiration. The 
richness of this fine singing, full of force and 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 97 

expression, is wonderfully edifying; how many 
times did its harmony transport me, refresh me, 
inspire me ! 

The atmosphere of freedom has brought forth 
upon the American soil a Catholicism of a very 
particular kind, active, original, determined to ad- 
vance in accord with what is best in our epoch. 
We have become acquainted with it in France 
through a great number of publications, particu- 
larly the works of the Abbe Klein. It has the 
highest claims upon our attention and sympathy, 
and holds within it useful lessons not only for the 
Catholicism but also for the Protestantism of our 
old European countries. The spirit of freedom, of 
Christian hardihood, of wide and intelligent com- 
prehension of the new duties of Christ's disciples, 
finds within it individual expression of exceptional 
value, and produces aggregates that leave nothing 
to be desired from the standpoint of practical power 
for the moral and religious progress of the com- 
munities in whose midst their activity is displayed. 
I made it a duty, as I felt it a pleasure, to go as 
far as St. Paul, for the purpose of presenting my 
respects to the venerable Archbishop Ireland. In 
the spirit in which it is represented by this great 



98 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

and good man, and by many of the most authorita- 
tive of his colleagues, Catholicism is eminently 
sympathetic; it is very American, liberal, deter- 
mined to live in harmony with the other religious 
bodies. 

Beyond question, another Catholicism, particu- 
laristic, exclusive, exists by its side, whose present 
course can but be deplored by the friends of the 
broader and more generous Catholic Church, among 
whom I shall always count myself. I am going to 
present some reflections which this attempt at a 
retrograde movement has suggested; they are as 
applicable to the other religious bodies as to Catho- 
lics, and true on both sides of the ocean. 

The churches are able to marshal a great num- 
ber of forces, among which are a tremendous power 
of resistance for opposing what they think they 
ought, and a beautiful and wonderful power of 
attraction and assimilation, for drawing to them- 
selves and absorbing whatever seems to be advan- 
tageous to them. The more considerable a power is, 
the more discerningly should it be employed; do 
the churches always use these great forces with 
sufficient discernment as to their duty and their 
higher interests.'' It is a question that one may well 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 99 

ask. In spite of their wisdom, so ripe, so marvel- 
lously subtle, a wisdom that . we wish we might 
always hold in respect, it sometimes happens that 
they become confused between the uses of their 
powers of resistance and those of their powers of 
attraction, and too often when the latter should be 
called into action, they employ the former; they 
rear a massive barrier in the way of what they 
ought to welcome, and welcome what they ought 
to oppose. 

The religious bodies that have taken upon them- 
selves the task of making specially prominent their 
combative qualities, have failed at the same time 
in their duty to themselves and their duty to their 
time. In considering the present situation of the 
Catholic Church, for example, are not her well- 
wishers justified in thinking she has done herself 
wrong in Europe, and especially in France, by as- 
suming a repulsive and combative attitude toward 
certain essential principles of the modern world, 
like freedom of conscience and of investigation, 
equal rights, democracy, and historical criticism.'' 
while it is to the cordial reception of these prin- 
ciples that she, as well as all contemporary religious 
groups, might owe a new evolution, beneficial to 



100 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the whole world, of a destiny already so far-reach- 
ing and so splendid? Why wage a mortal warfare 
against that which would be your salvation, and 
cherish or receive with hospitality ideas and prac- 
tices injurious to you? 

American Catholicism is a plain proof of the 
justice of these reflections; what has made it pow- 
erful and capable of maintaining itself is the at- 
mosphere of freedom breathed in America, and a 
great danger would threaten its development the 
moment it should give heed to badly inspired coun- 
sellors. It would be contrary to the most elementary 
wisdom, to try to introduce into the land of libertj'' 
the old methods that have so often brought the 
Church under suspicion with liberal Europe. Why 
array ourselves against the liberty and the public 
laws under whose protection we flourish? 
* * * * * 

Among the elements that go to make up the 
essential substance of what I shall call the better 
America, the religious element is chief, and one 
of the great problems confronting the country to- 
day, is the transference of its religious inheritance 
into thought and expression that can be assim- 
ilated by the modern mind. If religious America, 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 101 

following the course of certain religious bodies of 
Europe, should attempt to isolate itself from mod- 
ern thought, to stop its ears, after the manner of 
decrepit and servile conservatism, it would gradu- 
ally degenerate into a foreign body at the heart of 
the nation, become simply a " force of inertia,'* 
instead of remaining, as it should do, and has done 
hitherto, the nation's true controlling force. To 
direct, inspire and inform the public spirit, to guide 
the course of the education of youth, to epitomise 
in an ideal that is ever being renewed, all the bet- 
ter aspirations of a people, demands a living force, 
neglectful of nothing, disdainful of nothing, unit- 
ing the pious remembrance that guards what is best 
in the heritage of the past, with the spirit of re- 
search, of toil, of that freedom by which the future 
is to be conquered. 

America will know how to resolve this problem, 
because she keeps herself in readiness to receive 
the new impulsions of that divine Spirit, which 
alone is able, at the successive stages of humanity, 
to disclose to us the necessary " word proceeding 
out of the mouth of God," and to furnish us the 
fresh manna essential to our souls. She has, in all 
her different denominations, a great number of men 



102 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

who have arrived at harmonising, in their inner life, 
respect for sacred tradition and the duty of keep- 
ing in contact with the life of the present and its 
needs. These men avail themselves of every source 
of light that might aid them to translate the old 
verities into new language, without letting any part 
of them go. We were happy to find in their hands 
the books of our noted compatriot, Auguste Saba- 
tier, one of the most faithful believers and one of 
the best authorities of modern times. The synthesis 
of tradition with the aspirations of the present, 
found in him, and has found in his writings, a 
most happy expression. He is one of those to 
whom, when the ways have been . opened, the ob- 
stacles overcome, and the new places for the soul's 
refuge established, the future will owe most. Hav- 
ing known him well and loved him much, and 
having shared the suffering that the suspicions of 
a narrow ecclesiasticism made this valiant spiritual 
pioneer undergo, I experienced a profound joy 
when I saw that by the grace of God, who brings 
the dead to life, this dear one departed is among 
those who are aiding here to build the religious city 
of to-morrow. 



XIX 

THE BIBLE IN THE UNITED STATES 

WHEN tlie men of old went out from 
their native country to establish colo- 
nies, they carried with them, as the 
most important of their possessions, their household 
gods; for there are divinities august and far re- 
moved, and there are familiar divinities. We have 
need that the facts of domestic life, the everyday 
duties and joys and sorrows, be under the protec- 
tion of a sanctifying and reassuring watchfulness. 
The early American colonists, especially those 
who contributed most toward making the country 
what it has become, brought with them the Bible. 
Often they had been the victims of a narrow sec- 
tarianism, whose violent persecution had forced 
them to leave their native soil. Uprooted as they 
were, torn away from all their old traditions, they 
came as strangers to a strange land, with an utterly 
new life before them. But fortunately for them, 
they brought with them that Bible which is in itself 

a tradition and a fatherland. 

103 



104 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

When they opened it, at night, under the new 
shelters they had made themselves in their clearings 
in the forest solitudes, the feeling in their hearts 
was like that of a man separated from his country 
and his kin, when he looks at the stars. He sees 
what he has often seen before, in his home land. 
This same light which smiled on his childhood and 
is still shedding its rays over the country he has 
left behind, greets him here. In these changed 
surroundings, how good it is to see something that 
is changeless ! So for these colonists of the new 
world, to open the Bible in the midst of their 
families was to illumine their hearths with a flame 
that radiated the dearest memories of the past and 
the greatest cheer for the future. Is not this Book 
heavy with all men's griefs and exultant with all 
their hopes.'* Is it not an inexhaustible quarry 
whence granite and marble may be drawn for the 
building of new cities .f* Without traditions, laws, or 
political organisation, utterly self-dependent in the 
face of a wilderness of unexplored territory, these 
first American colonists found all their needs sup- 
plied in the Good Book. It was their riches in the 
midst of poverty, and since they owed it more than 
others do, and were conscious of their debt, they 



THE BIBLE 105 

loved it more. And this love for the Book which 
furnished them the foundations of their cities, the 
basis of their Constitution, the shelter over their 
heads and the nutriment of their souls, this love 
in which gratitude was blended with faith and 
experience, they have handed down to their suc- 
cessors. 

It does not matter that floods of people, with the 
blood and the ideas of all the nations on earth, pour 
into the United States; at the root of the national 
life, at the very heart of the American people, 
wrought out of the best elements of a tolerant and 
harmonious religion, and the most fundamental 
principles of a true and sure morality, the biblical 
mentality is intrenched. Everybody understands the 
Bible language and its splendid and impressive 
figures. In everyday speech, in the style of au- 
thors and journalists, in college instruction, in the 
speeches of statesmen, on all sides, in fact, you 
encounter, not exact quotations nor the odious cant 
phrases that are almost invariably a sign of hypoc- 
risy, but involuntary reminiscences of the poetry 
of the Bible, colours borrowed from Bible land- 
scapes, breaths wafted from Tabor or Golgotha. 

America has not only its Bible societies, Bible 



106 :\IY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

houses and Bible classes, it even has Bible Teach- 
ers' Training Schools. I visited the one at New 
York, which is in fact a little university. The aim 
of these schools is to make the Bible known to those 
who wish to teach or interpret it, and some of their 
characteristic methods and ideas are very worthy of 
being noted. I transcribe what follows from the 
prospectus of the New York school. 

The Church's greatest need is acquaintance with 
the Scriptures. The unification of Christendom, so 
much to be desired, must come about neither from 
sentimental nor from practical considerations, but 
from a profounder initiation into the truths of the 
faith, a thing to be acquired only through the 
study of the Bible. 

The Bible should be studied with the same scien- 
tific and critical acumen as any other book, and in 
accordance with the most approved methods. 

Again, we should endeavour to take a fresh view 
of the facts, not permitting ourselves to be ham- 
pered or limited by any system or doctrine; at the 
same time we should avoid the mistake of thinking 
we have nothing to learn from our predecessors. 
For there are these two fatal tendencies in pursu- 
ing any study whatever : one, the tendency to accept 



THE BIBLE 107 

everything at second hand; the other^ the tendency 
to refuse so to accept anything. 

And again: Never put anything into the Scrip- 
tures, but draw out of them everything they really 
contain. 

These are excellent principles, and numbers of 
enlightened friends of the Bible in America are 
striving to follow them. Far from fleeing the re- 
searches of science in these matters, they eagerly 
follow their lead, and do everything possible to 
spread them abroad. And what good foundation 
they have for the confidence they thus show ! The 
Bible is a book in which the religious light and 
moral warmth of the past are conserved, as pri- 
meval vegetations, with all the sunshine they had 
drunk in, are condensed in the earth's mines. Such 
a store of sunshine can be turned again into light: 
but do not approach this book with preconceived 
ideas of it. The Bible is the least exclusive of 
books. It may be compared to his Father's house, 
in which Jesus said are many mansions. If the dif- 
ferent classes of human minds would be willing to 
install themselves each in its own mansion, without 
claiming it to be the only one, and let their neigh- 
bours do the same, from this dwelling together in 



108 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

brotherliness would proceed a wealth of view. For 
the Bible is comprehensive as no other book is. All 
the happy contradictions which go to make up life, 
and which sectarians methodically exclude from 
their conception of things, are reconciled and har- 
monised in the Bible. Systems stultify us with all 
their logic; the Bible is a reflection of life itself, 
unbounded, illimitable ; in its atmosphere we breathe 
freely, and the study of the Scriptures without any 
dogmatic reservations, is the best tonic for the mind 
of religious men. From this point of view, it is 
perhaps even more a book of the future than of the 
past. Certain alarmist authorities have named the 
Bible the hook of heretics, by which they mean to 
characterise it as a book dangerous when free, only 
salutary when in bondage. So they have sluiced its 
unfettered and vigorous torrents, to make them 
turn the wheels of their own particular mills. But 
there always comes a day when the torrents break 
loose, bearing wheels, mills and millers away with 
them. 

The power of powers — that power of which all 
the manifestations of matter in action, the widest 
display of creative energy as well as the most sub- 
tle, the swiftest and most formidable destructive 



THE BIBLE 109 

forces, are but feeble symbols — is the Spirit; and 
the human expression of the Spirit is the Word. 
The Word is sacred, let no one lay hands upon its 
liberty. And this Word in the sense of the best 
that has been thought and said in the world, is the 
Bible. Both in detail and as a whole, it has been 
subjected to much violence; all the weapons of de- 
ceit and malignity have been turned against it; yet 
its worst enemies have not been its antagonists but 
its injudicious friends who try to domesticate it in 
their sacristies. The Bible is like the eagles ; it must 
have perfect freedom to spread its wings. Let the 
Word take its free and natural flight, and it will 
be your salvation, it is the most resistless, the most 
deathless, and the most hopeful of all our inheri- 
tances, and at the same time the least tyrannical 
and the least intolerant. 

In this Book, there are hosts of the dead who are 
living, and who would speak to the living that are 
dead; it will always be the marvellous Book of all 
the alliances, old or new, through which we are 
strong. The best wish to be made for America is 
that she may remain capable of understanding and 
loving this Book and its inexhaustible Spirit, so 
that fresh shoots from the old and vigorous stock 



110 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

of the Prophets and the Gospel, may be put forth 
with each new generation. 

While we are speaking of the Bible, let us in 
conclusion trace a parallel between two very dif- 
ferent ways of using it. To some people it is an 
arsenal stocked with weapons for assailing their 
neighbours, in which all the engines of destruction 
may be found, from the most primitive to the most 
elaborate. Churches and sects have drawn much 
upon this collection. In running through the Bible 
from this point of view, it is easy to point out pas- 
sages by which this or that doctrine is demolished, 
this or that heresy throttled; the fields of battle, 
the places of execution and massacre are definitely 
marked. But the Bible was not made to help us 
destroy one another, to employ it so is to abuse it, 
to commit the crime that is always possible, in put- 
ting even the best things to wrong uses. 

There are others, happily, to whom the Bible 
appears as an immense store-house of invigorating 
strength, of enlightenment of soul, and of tender- 
ness. When it is looked at from this point of view, 
its pages recall countless benefits to mankind. The 
unhappy and unfortunate of all the ages, have taken 
refuge in its high sanctuaries. There broken cour- 



THE BIBLE 111 

age has been restored, hearts tortured by the re- 
membrance of sin have found pardon; the Book's 
wealth lies not only in its own resources, but also 
in the immense capital of the good it has done. The 
latter way of understanding the Scriptures has a 
growing representation in the United States. 



XX 

WITH THE FRIENDS 

AMONG the various groups of the American 
people^ whose reception remains vivid in 
my remembrance, I ought to mention spe- 
cially the Society of Friends, most numerous to-day 
in Philadelphia, the city of Penn. People of severe 
and sturdy simplicity, scornful of lying conventions 
and formal prescriptions, the Friends have long 
preached and practised " the simple life," so that 
a lively sympathy inclined them toward my ideas, 
in which they recognised what had been their own 
ideals and aspirations for centuries. For my part, 
I had long had the desire of encountering some of 
them. It had happened to me, here and there, in 
the course of my life, to know people whose relig- 
ious practices were of this laic form, broad and 
truly human, and their uprightness and unpreten- 
tious kindness had made an extraordinary impres- 
sion upon me; for nothing wins me like directness, 
sincerity, and absence of affectation. 

The Friends have so far broken with formalism, 

112 



WITH THE FRIENDS 113 

that they might almost be considered formalists 
from excess of informality; for instance^ it is not 
permitted them to invite any one to their meetings. 
I was not, then, in any sense invited among them, 
and I should have been for ever deprived of the 
pleasure of being there, had I waited for the mak- 
ing of a definite engagement; but there came a 
suggestion, almost by chance, that I go without 
ceremony. So I went, and nobody seemed to ob- 
serve the fact. 

I found the meeting-house furnished with noth- 
ing but benches — no organ was there, no religious 
symbolism. The windows are so placed as to light 
the room very judiciously, but not so that one may 
see what is going on outside. All the Friends are 
laymen, there are no clergy. When they come to- 
gether, each one takes his seat in silence, without 
paying any attention to his neighbours; no one 
looks about, and no matter what visitor chances to 
arrive, no one disturbs himself, but everybody ap- 
pears indifferent to his coming; it would seem that 
the Friends had borrowed from the old Stoics their 
nil mirari. 

The meeting begins in silence ; there is no liturgy, 
no chant, and nobody says anything ; they all think. 



114 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

The faces are characteristically serious and benevo- 
lent^ and on all sides reign a great calm and the 
spirit of peace. Never have I better understood the 
speech of silence than in this assembly dedicated 
to meditation. If no one finds sufficient reason for 
breaking this silence^ the congregation departs as 
it came^ after the lapse of a reasonable time, and 
it does not enter any one's mind to regret that no 
word has been spoken. 

It is said that the Arabs mistrust the loquacious 
and honour the silent; in this matter the Friends 
are Arabs ; yet it seemed evident to me that to come 
and go without uttering a word, would be an offence 
against one of their fundamental principles, which 
is to speak when you are moved to. I was moved to 
speak, and as I had a number of things to say, I 
arose, and said them, where I was. Several men and 
women replied, and after the meeting, a number of 
them came up, all " thee-and-thouing " me, accord- 
ing to their custom: — " I have read thy book." " I 
am pleased to meet thee." 

Among themselves the Friends are absolutely 
delightful, and their calm does the soul no end of 
good in this restless age. I never tired of contem- 
plating some of their good faces, at once full of life 



WITH THE FRIENDS 115 

and of peace; I was particularly struck with the 
depth and beauty of one venerable man's blue eyes. 
Fear nothings be not dismayed, do not worry, do 
not hurry ; act with good sense and tranquillity, and 
trust in God — this sums up a goodly number of 
their principles. Another is to respect the soul of 
every man. No other people have a like veneration 
for conscience, or show more delicacy of respect 
for its integrity; there are no autocrats among 
them, no use of compulsion; every individuality is 
sacred; never, according to their ideas, should we 
substitute our own conscience for another man's, 
influencing him to acts in which he is nothing but 
our instrument. 

The Friends cannot be judged by their number, 
quite limited to-day, nor by surface appearances, 
nor by the position they seem to occupy in the 
world. As they are modest and scorn the trumpet- 
ing of good deeds, it takes time to inform yourself 
of their value as an active principle in the society 
of the time. 

The fact is that by reason of their honesty, their 
thrifty simplicity, their contented minds and me- 
thodical ways, they have long held an extraordi- 
nary position. Some of the most important of the 



116 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

country's affairs are in their hands, and are passed 
on from father to son; for as business men the 
Friends are wise and scrupulous. Many of them 
have large fortunes, but they make no display of 
their charities, and this unobtrusive generosity is 
greatly to their honour. 

Several of the best schools of Philadelphia and 
its vicinity are under the direction of the Friends, 
some of them restricted to their own children, 
others for the benefit of the community at large. 
Much work and little noise, seems to be the device 
of these educators, and their calm is itself a power 
in education. The best schoolmaster is he whom 
nothing astonishes, and whose disposition is per- 
fectly even, provided it be not too inflexible. These 
Quaker teachers do not try to win their pupils by 
smiles and cajolery; nothing of the sort; they are 
simply kind with unvarying kindness. A too de- 
monstrative kindness is a fair-weather sign indica- 
tive of squalls to come; it is sometimes only ner- 
vousness, and nerves, in education . . . There must 
be none ! 

Often, when I visited these tranquil school- 
rooms, a regret arose in me that I was not a child 
again, I should have been made so happy by the 



WITH THE FRIENDS 117 

life I saw there, a perfectly normal and natural 
life, and penetrated in the most unostentatious way 
with the perfume of spirituality, recalling forest 
trails rather than the incense of altars. For these 
good people possess the modesty of religion ; re- 
ligion is ever present with them, but never paraded ; 
their language is as natural and free from cant as 
possible. They love children, in whom the future 
lies, and know how to treat them, without indulging 
them either too much or too little. 

They also love the dead, with whom lies remem- 
brance, and know how to honour them without 
trespassing upon the rights of the living. While 
the boys and girls were at their games on the cam- 
pus of the " Friends' Select School," in Philadel- 
phia, I was walking on adjoining ground, along an 
old sunny wall with clumps of bushes growing 
against it, in which little birds sat preening their 
feathers. Up on top of the city hall tower, the 
colossal statue of Penn seemed to stand guard over 
the parks, the two rivers and the harbour alive with 
its shipping. The activity of the great city was 
throbbing all about us in its tremendous arteries. 
Suddenly my foot struck a stone, flat in the short 
grass; upon it was the name of one of the great 



118 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

American Friends_, and looking about me more 
attentively, I discovered other stones, and other 
names: I was in an old cemeterJ^ Here, then, they 
lay, those valiant pioneers, who had helped in the 
building of America; here they were sleeping, 
those men of peace, who had obstinately suffered 
persecution to gain it. I meditated on their spirit 
of sacrifice, their tranquil faith, that almost super- 
human heroism which characterises certain episodes 
in their history, and their invincible patience, 
which made their resistance to any form of tyranny 
like the resistance of the irreducible pebble. The 
joyous shouts of the children vibrated in my ears, 
and the dust of the dead trembled under my feet. 
The thrill of a beautiful and abundant pulse of life 
shot through me, wherein the fresh strength of life's 
morning and the solidarity of the past were min- 
gled, and above the graves of the fathers I prayed 
for their children with the candid eyes and glow- 
ing cheeks; while on the wings of the breeze and 
the sun-rays, there came a mysterious salutation 
from the invisible Father, in Whom all the gener- 
ations of men are one. 



XXI 

THE GUEST OF ISRAEL 

DURING the last week of my stay in New- 
York, I received a note from the Rev. 
Dr. Blum, a rabbi of Alsatian descent, 
asking for an interview. We met the next day, 
which was Friday. 

" You have many friends among the Jews," said 
Dr. Blum, " and numbers of those who have read 
your books would be very glad to encounter you; 
would you go to the synagogue to meet them? " 

When I replied that nothing could give me 
greater pleasure, he hastened away to tell Dr. Sil- 
verman, the distinguished rabbi of Temple Emanu- 
El, and later the two rabbis came in company, to 
invite me to take part in the next day's services. 

The appointment was made, and I experienced 

a great spiritual joy in the thought of worshipping 

with the descendants of the Prophets, with sons of 

the race to which the world owes Jesus Christ and 

all the greatest treasures of its religious patrimony. 

I thought of my dear Jewish friends in Paris, and 

119 



120 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

of one home in particular_, that is specially near to 
my heart, where for years, in fulfilment of the wish 
of an old grandmother, no longer with us, I have 
been fraternally associated in the family celebration 
of the feast of the Passover. Such an invitation 
extended to an infidel (in the orthodox phraseology) 
was certainly not conformable to any official rule, 
but it was given with such good intention, and ac- 
cepted so heartily, that a bit of the millennium 
always seemed to me to be germinating in the hos- 
pitality shown around that paschal table, over- 
shadowed by its ancient and venerable traditions. 
I have never been able to forget that Jesus insti- 
tuted the Supper of the New and Universal Cov- 
enant, at the table where he had just partaken of 
the feast of the Old. 

When I was about to leave Paris, these Jewish 
friends said to me, " See what the American Jews 
are doing, in religious, moral, social and educational 
affairs, and tell us when you come back." Before 
this hospitality in New York, I had heard, at the 
Universal Peace Congress in Boston, addresses by 
such rabbis as the Rev. Dr. Henry Berkowitz, who 
gave expression to as lofty sentiments as the mem- 
orable days of the Congress brought forth; and at 



THE GUEST OF ISRAEL 121 

Pittsburg I had made the acquaintance of Rabbi 
Leonard Levy, the young editor of the Jewish 
Criterion, an organ of Reform Judaism. This was 
on the occasion of a convention of Pennsylvania 
Sunday-schools, and the rabbi, having a Sunday- 
school of his own, was interested in the questions 
discussed. Not only was he seated on the plat- 
form with the clergy and the organisers of the 
meetings, but when an appeal was made for funds 
for certain Protestant schools, he instantly made a 
generous contribution. That evening, in his syn- 
agogue, Rodoph Sholom, we held a " peace meet- 
ing," at which representatives of the divers Prot- 
estant sects and of Catholicism sat side by side; 
while at Chicago, a few days later, there was a like 
reunion at Temple Sinai, the vast synagogue of 
Rabbi Hirsch. And it was the sentiment of all of 
us, that if ever peace is to dwell in this world, the 
different religions must renounce their old quar- 
rels and abolish the scandal of their an ti- fraternal 
exclusions, to give to the nations the example of 
an entente cordiale, and of their sincere conversion 
to a superior worship, wherein Unity shall have 
been created out of diversity. 

All these things came to my mind as I waited 



122 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

for the hour to go to Temple Emanu-El, the splen- 
did meeting-place of a vast congregation of Reform 
Jews. Arrived at the Temple, I was met by a com- 
mittee of the Emanu-El Brotherhood, including its 
octogenarian president, Mr. Seligman. The service 
began with chanting and a liturgy, followed by the 
reading of the Torah. I noticed that no one kept 
on his hat, and that the greater part of the chants 
and prayers were in the vernacular. Dr. Silverman 
preached on " the simple life " and simplicity of 
creed, comparing too complicated dogma to the ar- 
mour of Saul, in which the young David stifled and 
which he put off, crying, " I cannot go with these." 
Then, cutting short his discourse, he presented me 
to his congregation, as their guest, begging me, 
with the utmost courtesy, to take his place and 
speak to them. 

Such a cordial reception was given my words, and 
such brotherliness and sympathy were shown me 
afterward, that it was not possible to refuse a 
second invitation, made further in advance, in or- 
der that more members of the Emanu-El Brother- 
hood might come together. But, alas ! I had not an- 
other free evening, and the best we could do was 
to appoint a meeting for ten o'clock on the last 



THE GUEST OF ISRAEL 123 

night of my visit. That night I was to speak before 
the French branch of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. When after this address I reached the 
synagogue, in company with Dr. Silverman and 
Dr. Blum, we found it crowded with an audience 
of twenty-five hundred people. They had passed an 
hour in listening to music and hearing a report of 
their Brotherhood.* 

At the first glance, I felt that I had the absolute 
sympathy of my auditors; the soul of hospitality 
that characterised the old Israelites was beaming 
in these faces, and at the thought of all that this 
people had done and suffered, an intense emotion 
swept over me; the tremendous antiquity of their 
traditions seized upon my imagination, and I in- 
clined in spirit before more than three thousand 
years of history crowned on the far horizon by 
the giant peaks of prophetism. 

I chose two texts from the prophet Malachi, and 

* Among the people whom I met that evening, was the 
widow of Simon Borg, who has since been taken from 
the midst of her seven devoted children. She was one 
of the chosen, her whole life consecrated to doing good. 
In the conversation I had with her, I found her so full of 
courage to bear the ills of life, and of such firm faith united 
with so deep a comprehension of the behefs of others, that 
I shall ever keep a most pleasing remembrance of her. 



124 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

out of respect for the breadth of thought that had 
inspired the offer of such religious hospitality as 
I was enjoying, I spoke these texts in Hebrew. 
The first was: " Have we not all one father? hath 
not one God created us? " and the second: "And 
he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the chil- 
dren, and the heart of the children to their fathers." 
The words of this second text are the last in the 
Old Testament, and they might serve as a formula 
for normal human life, in all its domains. " The 
fathers " — that means tradition; " the children " — 
they are the new times: it would not be possible to 
have either a continuity of history or a real stability 
in the national, social or religious structure, with- 
out the harmonious concurrence of these two forces 
of past and future; the two watchwords of that 
superior mentality in which all the beneficent forces 
are wedded, are remember and onward, I attempted 
to draw from these great sayings of Malachi some 
of the truths they contain, and to call attention to 
their happy exposition of that real independence 
which is the inspiration of all fruitful liberty; and 
I concluded somewhat as follows : — " Our fathers, 
the fathers of all western religion, are you, are your 
prophets, pioneers in so extraordinary a progress. 



THE GUEST OF ISRAEL 125 

that in spite of their distance from us in the 
venerable past, even to-day they still point out 
to us the ways of the future. The rest of us are 
the children; and if ever the hearts of the children 
were to turn from the fathers, it would be an un- 
grateful thing, leading to sure disaster. Thus who- 
ever knows what the religious world owes you, 
pronounces the name of Israel with veneration. 

" But if you are the fathers, and if all honour 
and filial respect is due you from us, ought you not 
also to recognise your children.^ The old race of 
Isaiah, of him whose prophetic words marked out 
men's destinies in the passage so full of hope and 
of the future: — and there shall come forth a shoot 
out of the stock of Jesse — this old race is one with 
the new family, and never have I felt the truth of 
it more deeply than this evening. We all need to 
meditate upon the broad and magnanimous spirit 
that breathes in this fine text, in order to bring 
ourselves into unison with its intent. Thus shall we 
join the Old Testament and the New in fruitful 
collaboration. Each calls for the other, they inter- 
pret one another, and they are never so great as 
when bound between the same covers." 

It is always well to cultivate hope and ideality. 



126 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

even in the atmosphere of a materialism that re- 
gards you as a Utopian. Some years earlier, in my 
book " The Better Way," I had expressed the hope 
that the different religious families, while each still 
fostered its o^vn peculiar beliefs, might some day 
meet on the ground of a serene and benevolent hos- 
pitality, and that people might be invited from 
church to church, as they are from family to fam- 
ily. How many smiles that naive page evoked 
from the sages of this world ! That night at Temple 
Emanu-El, I perceived that we were not so far 
as we might be from these spiritual agapae among 
men of different religions, and I promised myself 
that I would neglect no opportunity for making 
possible these love-feasts of so great mutual benefit. 
It was not far from midnight when we left this 
house of prayer, where hearts had come so near 
one another; but it was not too late for one more 
cordial gathering; my friends of the Synagogue 
took me to one of their clubs for a supper. Around 
the table were seated prominent members of the 
Synagogue — Mr. Seligman, the banker; Dr. Singer 
and several of his collaborators on the Jewish En- 
cyclopedia, which will be one of the most interest- 
ing historical monuments of our time; Mr. Lewi- 



THE GUEST OF ISRAEL 127 

sohn, known for his gifts to universities and his 
works of general philanthropy, and a number of 
college professors and school teachers. There were 
speeches, the most interesting to me being that of 
a teacher on the East Side, among the dense popu- 
lation that is being daily augmented by Jewish fam- 
ilies who have been driven out of Europe. These 
people create a tremendous problem for the Amer- 
ican Jews, and from the response Mr. Lewisohn 
made to this speech, I saw that the intentions of 
these men are on a level with the most exacting 
duties. They feel responsible for these thousands, 
these myriads of their unfortunate brothers thrust 
out from their native lands, and seek not only to 
keep them from starvation during the first months 
of their coming, but also to sustain them morally 
and materially until a new future opens to them. 
A few days before, I had visited the Montefiore 
Home, a great hospital on the banks of the Hud- 
son, for incurables of all ages. Here the poor un- 
fortunates are received without distinction of race 
or creed, just as patients are received at Mount 
Sinai Hospital, an establishment with the best 
modern equipment. I went away from the supper, 
that early morning, with the impression, confirmed 



128 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

by all my other experiences among the American 
Jews, of an active and highly intelligent commu- 
nity, open to all lofty ideas, that has been in- 
fluenced in the happiest way by the vitalising air 
of the New World. 



XXII 

OUR BLACK BROTHERS 

I HAD awaited with a certain impatience an 
opportunity to meet representatives of the 
negro race^ and one of the first of them with 
whom I came into personal contact, was a cabman 
who drove me about Washington, and who informed 
me that he had read " The Simple Life." His words 
were accompanied by such expansive smiles, that his 
face, illumined by the flash of white teeth, remains 
fresh in my memory. 

In families, in restaurants, on trains, wherever 
negroes were employed, they appeared to me to 
work cheerfully and acquit themselves with credit. 
There is specially good opportunity to observe them 
while they polish your shoes. America abandons to 
every man the care of his own footgear; as a rule, 
his shoes are not cleaned for him, either in private 
families or hotels,* but as he takes them off at 

* I should, however, reproach myself if I did not disclose 
the fact, that in a number of houses we surprised our friends 
themselves occupied in blacking our shoes, the servants not 
being accustomed to do it. 

129 



130 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

night, so he puts them on in the morning, and at 
the first opportunity he gives himself into the hands 
of one of those efficient bootblacks, whose street 
cry is " Shine ! shine ! " The bootblack offers him 
a seat, a commodious arm-chair, sometimes of regal 
splendour, suggestive of the sort of throne the boot- 
blacks of the good city of Lyons have their cus- 
tomers mount, and very far removed in dignity from 
the poor substitute in the shape of a box, offered 
by our Paris porters. If you vrish greater privacy 
than the street affords, you are invited into some 
basement, or oftener into a hotel lobby. During the 
operation of polishing, the customer, pressed for 
time, generally reads his paper, or occupies himself 
in some other way; but I took care to avoid that. 
A man who is having a service rendered him, owes 
some attention to the brother who for the moment 
is giving it; and such a service as it is in this case! 
Do not suppose that a blacking-box and brush 
constitute the entire outfit. In the first place, the 
black man as he bends over your shoes, has not the 
air of going to work haphazard; he seems to be 
considering you as a subject for his art and good 
intentions. First comes a careful cleaning, with a 
brush that would sooner take away the surface of 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 131 

the leather than leave a bit of mud behind; then a 
scientific application of blacking, and a swift rub- 
bing off with softer brushes; and after that the 
varnishing and polishing with strips of flannel of 
gradually diminishing harshness. The whole costs 
ten cents, fifty centimes. Your black brother dis- 
misses you with a broad smile, and you go away with 
two glittering mirrors on your feet. A good polish 
lasts a week — if it doesn't rain. 

In Pullman cars, as the train nears your station, 
the negro porter takes possession of your hat, your 
overcoat, and even your umbrella, and brushes them 
with a whisk-broom under whose strokes not a par- 
ticle of dust is suffered to remain; then he ap- 
proaches you, asks you to rise, and with good- 
natured vehemence brushes your clothing from 
collar to shoes. At night, while you are asleep in 
your berth, the porter is on guard, and he wakens 
you in the morning by lightly tapping you on the 
shoulder. 

If the traveller does not address the porter, the 
porter remains mute, but if you open conversation, 
he responds heartily, and after having fully replied 
to your questions, he puts some to you in return — 
an exchange of civilities. 



122 MY IxAlPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

1 1 studied the negro faces carefully, and along 
with certain thick-lipped types, characterised for 
the most part by animality, which easily find a 
place beside our brutal white types, I encountered 
many open faces, bearing all the marks of intelli- 
gence and true spirituality. But most frequently of 
all, I encountered an expression that I have never 
observed in the same degree on the face of any 
white man, — an expression of fidelity, of devotion, 
to which their colour gives a special cachet, and 
which made an extraordinary impression upon my 
mind. ; 

***** 

One morning, in New York, while I was having 
a friendly chat with Maurice, a negro of magnificent 
proportions, who came regularly in the early morn- 
ing to greet me with a smile and ask if I had need 
of anything, I learned, not without surprise, that 
we were colleagues. Maurice was a preacher, the 
head of a congregation, founder of a theological 
school, and, meanwhile, valet de chambre; his con- 
gregation being too poor to assure his material life, 
he gained his subsistence as a servant. 

The combination of the two functions was sure 
to have its disadvantages — the right to speak au- 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 133 

thoritatively united to the position of a subordinate ; 
the leisure necessary to study, occupied with house- 
hold affairs; thought itself, following its course 
within, interrupted at every moment by an order 
or a telephone call ! But these disadvantages, which 
certainly are not slight, give one a glimpse of ad- 
vantages whose weight might make the scales turn 
in their favour. After all, the preacher should seek 
the matter for his teaching in life even more than 
in books ; it is less to his disadvantage to lack erudi- 
tion than to lack experience. Now experience is 
never to be had gratuitously; it costs dear, when- 
ever it is really worth anything, and the most of 
us are not at all disposed to pay its price. Our only 
" trying " experiences, therefore, are those which, 
so to put it, are thrust upon us. The obstacles and 
hardships of existence and its inevitable sufferings, 
in costing us pain, increase our faculty for aiding 
others to live. But there are experiences of a some- 
what special nature, which are almost never under- 
gone save by proxy. Most of our preachers come 
from the middle classes ; we should find it contrary 
to their dignity were it otherwise; if they come 
from the people, if their fathers were peasants, 
labourers or servants, they are likely to rise to the 



134 i\IY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

middle-class ranks. Now in all epochs, particularly 
our own, one of the great questions which we have 
to carry into the pulpit, is the social question, and 
whether we regard it from above, the side of em- 
ployers, or from below, the side of workingmen and 
servants, we see it on one side only, and so see it 
badly. To comprehend it well, it is necessary to put 
ourselves at once in the place of those on both sides. 
But to put yourself in the place of another is one 
of those feats that a man may indeed attempt, or 
imagine himself to have successfully accomplished, 
but which belongs in truth to the domain of the im- 
possible. The best intention encounters insurmount- 
able obstacles in the undertaking. If another's place 
does not become in reality your own, you cannot 
feel what he feels. I am dealing here with the case 
of an upright man, seeking only what is just and 
right, as he should be who attempts to preach to 
others; moreover, a man who loves his fellow-men 
as men, and not by virtue of their particular class. 
This man is a domestic all day long, is bound to 
obey, and does it. Endowed with understanding, he 
observes the life of the home, and judges it at once 
with friendliness and penetration, but his role im- 
poses above all else respect and silence. At night he 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 135 

is free^ he is even a master himself, and clothed 
with a great authority. He speaks in the name of 
God and of humanity, in the name of the wisdom 
compacted of tradition and the living experience 
of to-day. The right to be heard and the boundless 
field of thought are his; if this man has a soul, 
he is better armed than any other man to say prac- 
tical words good to be pondered upon and assim- 
ilated. He deals with realities; he makes it felt 
that he knows both the face and the reverse of 
questions, because he has lived and does live both 
sides of them daily. And we cannot determine in 
which form of his activity he is most interesting, 
whether as preacher valet de chambre, or valet de 
chambre preacher. Surely each of these men has 
great need of the other. I am convinced that the 
world would advance more rapidly if great ques- 
tions were not generally debated as though across 
a chasm, between men who are informed on onlv 
one side of them. Social life would have everything 
to gain by the creation of human ties in which lie 
cordial and deep understanding, and a just judg- 
ment of the situation and of the rights and the 
duties of the two parties in question. We are ordi- 
narily divided into tvvo social parties, whose in- 



136 j\IY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

terests seem opposed to each other, and between 
whom rise intermediaries that oftener than not are 
ignorant about one of them, if not simply agitators 
exploiting two antagonistic forces for their o'svn 
profit. I would we might have men who love and 
appreciate both sides, and understand that the two 
should be at bottom one. A contradictory situation 
like that of the black colleague I had the good 
fortime to become acquainted with, however pain- 
ful and pathetic, may therefore be transformed 
into a source of human progress, upon condition 
that he who submits to it, is able to rise above his 
temporary roles, and under the livery of a domes- 
tic servant, as well as in the pulpit, remains first 
of all things a man. 

***** 
The opportunity of speaking to negro audiences, 
which I looked upon as a privilege, was twice ac- 
corded me in Philadelphia. They were audiences 
in which all ages mingled, the galleries being 
crowded with children. The hymns were sung with 
marvellous spirit, for all negroes adore music, and 
many of them attain to a rare musical development. 
As I sat on the platform, in company with several 
negro pastors and Mr. Wanamaker, I thought I 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 137 

must be dreaming. From the little woolly heads, 
singing away with such abandon, my glance turned 
toward the grown-up auditors. The hymn swelled 
richly, full of feeling; the atmosphere was one of 
kindness and welcome. Rarely have I felt happier 
in lending my voice to those old truths the Gospel 
has moulded into the ineffaceable likeness of uni- 
versal humanity than here ; I saw them vested with 
a new grandeur, when they served instantly as a 
perfect bond with men of a race hitherto strange 
to me; and in the first moment, that happy spark 
which sets in motion the currents of the higher life 
at the contact of souls, came spontaneously into 
being. My discourse finished, I sat down, and all 
eyes turned toward Mr. Wanamaker. " Now that 
you are among us," the pastor of the church said 
to him, " permit us to lay before you certain desid- 
erata." And he spoke of the services which, in the 
capacity of a merchant employing large numbers of 
people, Mr. Wanamaker might render his parish- 
ioners. During a part of this discourse, the pain- 
ful sentiments that fill the hearts of negroes in face 
of some of the stubborn antagonism and race preju- 
dice they have to meet, made themselves felt. 
Mr. Wanamaker accepted with visible satisfac- 



138 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

tion this excellent opportunity for expressing his 
sympathy with our black brothers. " When you 
have to do with me^ or with any of the very numer- 
ous men in this country who think and feel toward 
you as I do, say to yourselves this : * There is no 
question here of race, of face, or of place, but 
purely a question of grace, that is to say of aptitude 
and capacity.* You will always be welcome to a 
position, but to have it is not all; you must fill it. 
If, upon trial, we see that you have asked for a 
place in which you cannot successfully hold your 
own, we are obliged to discharge you, just as we 
should do in the case of a white man. Were this 
to happen, some of you would say that the colour 
of your face had lost you the position, but you 
would be wrong. You had too great ambition; hav- 
ing mounted too high, it would be necessary to step 
down. Believe me, we are your friends, and if an 
injustice should be done one of you, we should not 
stand behind any one answerable to us or within 
the limits of our influence, who had dared be want- 
ing in respect or fairness toward one of your 
number." 

Such words are the expression of the most pro- 
found feeling. At a distance, upon the faith of 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 139 

newspaper articles relating facts particularly odi- 
ous_, wherein race prejudice is displayed in its 
utter ugliness, we come to believe that throughout 
the whole extent of the United States, blacks and 
whites are completely separated, not mingling 
nor even meeting in public places like theatres, 
churches, railway cars, and particularly hotels. 
Great numbers of Americans not only do not 
despise or hate the negro, but devote themselves 
to his cause, and show their sympathy with him 
by all possible means. These men are not blind to 
the difficulties of what is called the negro question ; 
but they have a principle at once very just and 
very judicious: The more difficult a question is, the 
more goodwill we must concentrate upon its solu- 
tion. I esteem myself happy to have encountered a 
large number of these men, among whom I would 
mention in particular Mr. Robert C. Ogden, of New 
York. Greatly absorbed by colossal business affairs, 
he is none the less constantly occupied with social 
undertakings. He is one of a numerous group of 
Americans who do their country very great honour. 
For them business is a social function, and if it 
brings them wealth, wealth in their hands is a lever 
for good. Mr. Ogden concerns himself much with 



140 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the negroes, especially with the school at Hampton, 
an institution founded and formerly directed by 
General Armstrong, who was the spiritual father of 
Booker T. Washington. During long talks at his 
Broadway office, Mr. Ogden gave me information 
about educational work among the negroes, putting 
into my hands a mass of documents that treat of 
the question. Not only do you feel that in his capac- 
ity as president of the Hampton Association, he 
interests himself personally in its immediate affairs, 
but it is plain that this interest touches his very 
heart. When he speaks of the negroes, his eyes 
moisten; yet he is a man of strength, above the 
ordinary in stature, and possesses great self-com- 
mand. It was through him that I came into per- 
sonal contact with Booker T. Washington, one of 
the men I was most anxious to meet, whose hand I 
felt myself honoured to touch, and whose school 
at Tuskegee I promised myself surely to visit later 
on. For this time I had to be content with giving 
a lecture for the benefit of Hampton Institute. 

The lecture was arranged by Mr. Ogden, and 
took place in the great building due, like so many 
others, to the generosity — known the world round 
— of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and called in con- 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 141 

sequence " Carnegie Hall." Eleven Hampton stu- 
dents, of between twenty and twenty-five years, 
had been sent from Virginia to sing before and 
after the lecture. As we were presented to one an- 
other, in the ante-room where we had some minutes 
to wait, I remarked that if they would like to give 
me a great pleasure, they might sing me something 
immediately. At once they ranged themselves and 
began to sing a double quartet. The floor seemed 
to vibrate, and the magnificent tone of their voices 
to penetrate my very bones and course through 
their marrow ; never before had I heard such ample 
-- bass come out of human throats; here was an organ 
alive. A little later they were heard in the great 
auditorium, where among other things they sang 
the old plantation songs of slavery days. Through 
the melancholy music of these songs, the human 
plaint is made in accents so full of sorrow, that the 
music is almost forgotten in the thought of those 
conditions of which it is an echo. 

I am not equipped to enter upon a discussion of 
the negro problem; it is a mountain that weighs 
upon the conscience of the United States ; but what 
gives me reassurance is the fact that no problem, 
whatever it may be, arising within the limits of a 



142 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

nation's destinies, is beyond the powers of that na- 
tion to solve, if only she meet it with good sense 
and clear judgment, on the one hand, and on 
the other with justice, goodwill, and real brotherly 
kindness. Of these practical attributes and these 
qualities of the heart, America holds in reserve 
an inexhaustible supply, and no obstacle, no prac- 
tical difficulty and no fatality of race can prevail 
against them. 

Meanwhile I deem myself happy to know the 
man whose name stands to-day for the hopes as 
well as the burdens of our black brothers, the man 
to whom from all quarters of America and of the 
world the sympathies we have for them go out — 
Booker T. Washington. I am going to tell the story 
of an occurrence that ought to be recorded among 
his memoirs. 

On the evening of October 7, 1904, we had as- 
sembled for a banquet, the last act of the Peace 
Congress at Boston, where six hundred guests from 
all the states of the Republic and all the countries 
of the world, found themselves at table together. 
Those of us who were to speak during the evening, 
were seated at a special table, where the orators 
could readily be seen. Booker Washington sat three 



OUR BLACK BROTHERS 143 

seats from me. When he rose to speak, the whole 
assembly, as if moved by the same spontaneous feel- 
ing, rose too, offering him a unique tribute, a tribute 
which, by reason of the character of the assembly, 
became a manifestation from the whole civilised and 
pacific Earth. 

Booker Washington is a man of medium height, 
thick-set, with a face expressive of energy. When 
he rises to speak, you feel that he bears upon his 
shoulders the burden of a race. His words are pene- 
trating, full of warmth, and go straight to the 
mark. He is eloquent with that superior eloquence 
which is inspired by courage, sincerity, and abso- 
lute devotion to a cause. Speaking figures, re- 
strained gestures, persuasive moderation — these are 
characteristics of his style. You feel that the man 
is a voice at the service of a principle. 

After certain periods into which he has put all 
his energy, when he closes his mouth, which is firm 
and strong, you feel how positive, how unassailable, 
is everything that he has said: the aspect of his 
ample chin, together with the flash of his eyes, re- 
calls Luther's splendid saying: " Here I stand; I 
can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen ! " 



XXIII 

INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 

IN America work attains to an extraordinary 
intensity. People have done a great deal of 
it almost everywhere during the last century, 
and more than ever before in the world's history; 
the construction of modern railways alone has up- 
turned so much ground, produced so much iron and 
rolling-stock, demanded the extraction from the 
earth of so much coal, that the toil of the ten pre- 
ceding centuries would not have sufficed for the 
work accomplished. In this effort of civilisation, \ 
America holds the record, and it must be added that 
nowhere is industry more honoured than in that 
land. Through his own efforts a man may attain to 
anything, and it is the men who are the sons of 
their own achievements that occupy the first place 
in the general esteem. / 

Work has produced great riches in the country, 
and is doing it every day, especially in the new 
sections that are being rapidly transformed into 

populous and industrious districts; and it is true 

144 



INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 145 

that wealth is highly esteemed, and money is the 
object of general respect. Let us even say that the 
desire of acquiring it animates the greater part of 
the people, and that the pride of riches and the 
splendour of the possessors of fat purses, put the 
unsuccessful into contempt. That is one of the dark 
sides of America, an anti-democratic side, and not 
without its danger for the future. But it is a draw- 
back that is common to America with other coun- 
tries, and that, moreover, she redeems by qualities 
which some nations are far from possessing. In 
general, what faults and defects the country has, 
none knows them better than herself, and it is with 
rare scrupulosity and perseverance that she sets 
herself to overcome them; so that the excesses to 
which the money power may lead have very 
weighty counter-balancing influences. 

To begin with, following an excellent custom 
that numbers of people who attain great fortunes 
adopt, generosity strives to pay the debt of wealth, 
and once considered by its possessors as an instru- 
ment for good, money may be used in so many 
fashions, that every just man is obliged to respect 
it. There are numerous examples of men who ad- 
minister their riches as a sacred trust, an accumu- 



14G MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

lation from the general labour, and deposited in 
their hands that it may serve the general interest. 
To them possession is a social charge which involves 
their responsibility to the highest degree, and to 
the mind of those who know her in the person of 
some of her richest citizens, America is in no way 
described when she is called the country of King 
Dollar. If she has her money-madmen to whom the 
end justifies the means, her selfish hoarders, her 
corruptionists who try to rule by buying men's con- 
sciences with gold, she has also raised to the height 
of a principle, an institution, the duty of using one's 
wealth well. Many of her citizens brought into 
great prominence by reason of their financial stand- 
ing, live personally without ostentation, and would 
not feel justified in making lavish expenditure for 
themselves or their children; in a word, they 
know that they are responsible, to God and to man, 
for the use of their wealth, and this knowledge 
guards them from the fatal temptation which comes 
to those without this controlling force from the 
fact that they may, if they will, satisfy all their 
desires. 

But what to my mind further counterbalances, in 
this generation, the demoralising and fatal influence 



INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 147 

of too great fortunes accumulated in the hands of 
individuals, is the fact that in America everybody 
works, the richest men often harder than the others, 
some of them reducing themselves to veritable sla- 
very, as a matter of conscience, so that I would by 
no means change places with them. But it is for 
this very reason that they deserve to be respected 
and admired. There is a very noble form of self- 
abnegation in this fashion of being a slave to the 
duties of the rich. 

The simple truth is, that idleness has never ac- 
quired the rights of citizenship in America, and 
assuredly not its privileges. In older societies, a 
certain aristocracy, too often a degenerate one, long 
generations ago lost the habit of working, and pub- 
lic opinion is so greatly influenced by the existence 
of this highly placed and brilliant collection of 
idlers, that it has come to accept as a sign of nobility 
a man's not being obliged to work in order to live. 
The farther away a fortune is from its source, 
labour, and the longer passing generations have 
been accustomed to finding it in the cradle, the more 
quarterings of nobility does it seem to possess. Thus 
it comes about that classes which are really para- 
sitic, consider themselves the flower of society. Un- 



148 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

der protection of this superstition, the idlers have 
the best of things; and whoever is able to assure 
himself a life of ease, feeling that he belongs, in 
some degree, to the race of the privileged, develops 
a state of mind that tends to look upon work as a 
servitude and a lowering of his dignity. 

On the other side of the ocean this swarm of 
drones, however iridescent their wings, are not ap- 
preciated. Of this they are aware, and so they keep 
out of sight. The habit of living a busy life is so 
general, that the man who does nothing must expa- 
triate himself. The cities of their own land do not 
offer enough resources to those who cannot content 
themselves with the simjDle distractions in which a 
man resting from toil is always ready to take de- 
light, but must be amused by novel and curious 
methods. They are condemned to ennui, and in the 
end ennui drives them forth from their native soil, 
to go join themselves, in some cosmopolitan centre 
of the old world, to the crowd of those whom idle- 
ness has there drawn together. 

America works, honours work, and knows how to 
organise it. As a general thing everybody knows his 
trade, and seeks to contribute to it some ingenious 
device of his own contriving. Minds are less the 



INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 149 

slaves of routine. A certain point of honour does not 
permit a man who has engaged himself to do a piece 
of work, to leave it before it is finished. From top 
to bottom of the social ladder, men feel the dignity 
of their calling, and expect to do well whatever 
they do. 

Difficulties and unexpected demands, instead of 
dismaying them, stimulate manufacturers, mer- 
chants, and even workingmen, and rather than ac- 
knowledge that they have not the requirements for 
carrying out an order, they will resort to tours de 
force and expedients that betray positive genius. 
Here is a typical and classic example of this dis- 
position to bold undertakings and labours that 
must be accomplished outside of ordinary condi- 
tions. After the destruction of Chicago by the great 
fire that left only a trifling portion of the city 
standing, as soon as the immediate demoralisation 
had passed, there was an extraordinary display of 
energy. Drafts were made upon all the reserve 
funds and all the sources of activity, in order to 
rebuild the city as quickly and as substantially as 
possible. One day a citizen presented himself at 
the office of a building contractor. 

" I need a house of such and such a character." 



150 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

" Very well, when do you want it? " 

The date was named. 

" We have fifteen buildings already promised for 
that day, but all of them are to be finished in the 
morning ; we will put yours down for the afternoon. 
You may count upon having it." 

America has her industrial schools, but the best 
of them all is herself, with her traditions and her 
practical ardour for industry. We attain to nothing 
high in any field without beginning at the rudi- 
ments, and in order to direct the work of others, we 
ourselves ought first to have done the thing they are 
to do. The life story of multitudes of men who have 
arrived at the direction of great business enter- 
prises, begins with some simple and modest task 
which they exerted their ingenuity to do as well as 
possible. In America to have begun with nothing 
is the greater honour. The energetic boy who thinks 
only of doing his work well, has but to look around 
him in order to see men that are living examples of 
what he may expect from life if he is not sparing 
of his pains, and this is a great incentive for every 
one to do his best. Once the impression gets abroad 
that a young man is a worker, all doors are open to 
him; and from the moment he shows himself to be 
the right man in the right place, there is no hag- 



INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 151 

gling over his pay. As a general thing, labour is 
well remunerated. That a man should give his toil 
for nothing is hot even tolerated, and the Biblical 
saying, " The labourer is worthy of his hire," is 
understood as an expression of dignity and not of 
venality. 

I am only a novice where commerce and industry 
are concerned, but I have the curiosity of a child 
who, with his hands behind his back, stands in the 
street watching a scissors-grinder at his work. How 
many manufactories have I not visited in old Eu- 
rope; how many trades have I not seen in opera- 
tion ! When I am forced to contemplate the idleness 
of some men's lives, a great sadness takes posses- 
sion of me, with such deep distress does the empti- 
ness of all this vanity fill me; but I never tire of 
watching a workman at his task, on account of a 
certain lofty dignity, a certain majesty, that sur- 
rounds him in my eyes. 

American workingmen appeared to me generally 
to labour under good hygienic conditions; the 
glimpses I had into printing-houses, manufactories 
and building establishments, have left me with an 
impression of cleanliness and dignity. Great num- 
bers of ingenious expedients, relating not only to 
mechanics, but to office and shipping business and 



152 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the handling of raw material, show that alertness 
and reflection are never wanting. To simplify, to 
make labour easier, more expeditious, neater; to 
render a tool more workable, a machine more pre- 
cise — this tendency is to be observed on every hand ; 
and as you make the countless reflections suggested 
by such intelligent activity, you are everywhere re- 
minded of the story of Columbus and the egg. 
Well, well, how simple, and at the same time, how 
ingenious ! You are astonished at not having in- 
vented all these expedients yourself. For instance, 
conductors of trolley cars have at their disposal a 
piece of mechanism with a bell^ of childish sim- 
plicity, for recording fares even from the farther 
end of the car, which saves them time, steps and 
mistakes. The moment they take a fare, they thus 
record it on the indicator; in Paris it is neces- 
sary to go to the indicator every time a fare is 
registered. 

Tradition is in all matters so important, that in 
this new country every trace of it becomes precious. 
In business houses tradition is kept alive in very 
real fashion by portraits of their founders and 
the successive directors. The manager's office is a 
sort of sanctuary, and impresses you with the great 



INDUSTRY AND WEALTH 153 

seriousness of business. On its walls are the fore- 
fathers of the house — not a long line, naturally, 
rarely stretching back beyond a hundred years ; but 
all these merchants and manufacturers and invent- 
ors have the venerable heads of patriarchs ; and the 
fine faces of these men, faces full of energy and 
intelligence, and breathing forth honesty and piety, 
make impressive pages of human history. A sight 
of their physiognomies helps one to comprehend 
why the influence of these pioneers is yet felt in 
whatever business they established. Probity, the love 
of work, and sentiments of justice and humanity, 
to their minds made a part of commercial and in- 
dustrial life. They pursued business, as the knights 
of old pursued war, with heart and soul, and their 
houses were established with a capital of honour 
and integrity which is certainly the most precious 
heritage they bequeathed to their successors. Long 
musing before these portraits of the older genera- 
tions, instinctively raises the question as to the ap- 
pearance the portraits of the present generation will 
make beside them. With all our heart we hope that 
the sons may resemble the fathers, and preserve in 
the new forms of the life of the present, the spirit 
which animated the business life of the past. 



XXIV 

RELAXATION 

I'N certain moments of intense labour, when all 
the cords of activity are stretched to the ut- 
most, there mingles with the impression of 
energy and power arising from cyclopean cities, a 
sort of anguish, something like the feeling that 
takes possession of us when we are being borne 
along involuntarily by a train at top speed. The 
idea of accidents and possible catastrophes presents 
itself to the mind. We ask ourselves what things 
are coming to; if such a pressure can be kept up, 
and for how long a time, and what will become of 
society in the crucible of such a furnace. Beyond 
a certain degree, activity becomes abnormal and the 
human organism goes wild. 

Good engines are provided with alarm signals or 
safety-valves, which give warning of approaching 
danger or announce a too high pressure. Such sig- 
nals also exist in the social mechanism, and for 

those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, they 

154 



RELAXATION 155 

perform their functions with insistence. Clear- 
sighted citizens are always ready to detect them, 
and to raise the cry of alarm. Loss of mental bal- 
ance, neurasthenia, and incapacity for work, as the 
result of rush and overexcitement ; the rage for 
speed, that takes possession of men as their pace 
accelerates; the unrest that comes from perpetual 
agitation; the absorption in ardent and incessant 
competition; the dizziness of lofty position too 
rapidly acquired — all these things disturb both 
mental and physical sanity, and result in a series 
of disasters or irregularities. You feel that with- 
out the presence of a formidable mass of ballast, 
the ship would find its progress put in jeopardy 
by the shocks of a headlong and hazardous navi- 
gation. Happily this ballast exists. 

It consists first in an enormous fund of common 
sense, always adequate for adjusting things; and 
next, in great sincerity in recognising the gaps in 
the social structure, and in filling them up. 

These powers of the first order are strengthened 
by a certain calm, whose salutary rule may be seen 
in force even in the midst of the most violent up- 
heavals. You are filled with admiration when you 
contemplate the tranquillity of soul that hosts of 



156 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

men preserve in the thick of affairs most discon- 
certing from their number and variety. 

To these fundamental qualities is to be added 
good hygienics. The care Americans take of their 
physical health strengthens them marvellously for 
the struggle, and is a safeguard to their mental en- 
ergy. There is no comparison to be made between 
them and us in the matter. Not only have they their 
outdoor games, sports universally entered into by 
all ages and both sexes, but they have also that 
fountain of youth, domestic hydropathy, and here 
what to us is the luxury of the rich is to them the 
daily portion of everybody. America bathes freely, 
both from national inclination and from habit that 
has become second nature ; America eats well in the 
morning and not too heartily at night; she makes 
war on alcohol, on late hours and close air. I do 
not mean that these three plagues, which are fos- 
tered especially in monster cities, are not known as 
well as among us; but they are held in check by 
a persistent struggle and the decided opposition 
of the healthy elements of the nation, united like 
a rampart in the face of these enemies of the 
human race. 

Added to all this, is the fact that America has 



RELAXATION 157 

an organised system of rest, and retreats for rest 
that are inviolable. First there is the everyday rest, 
when shops and offices are closed, and the home life 
with its comforts is in the ascendency. Then men 
brush oif their business cares like dust; there is 
no question of these cares in the home; there an- 
other world opens that is made for beguiling them. 
For hosts of Americans who keep early hours, the 
evening at home, with its tranquillity and affection, 
repairs all the ravages of the day. 

And then, they have their Sabbath, that Sabbath 
which we begin to perceive is one of the most valu- 
able of humanitarian institutions, and which should 
be reinstated wherever public carelessness or stupid- 
ity has let it lapse into desuetude. The Sabbath 
is the day of freedom, of pious recollection, the day 
of the ideal, of calm reflection, the day when man 
remembers that he is not a beast of burden, nor his 
destiny a treadmill round. 

On that day quantities of Americans are united 
in the moral and religious education of youth in 
Sunday-schools. The churches present an animated 
life that displays itself in hymns and prayers, as 
well as in all the forms of fraternal sociability. 
Men covered with the dust of the week are re- 



158 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

freshed and reinvigorated at the pure springs of 
holy thought and of a hope which aids them to 
bear their toils and fatigues. With the elements of 
wisdom, patience, and reflection that she is able to 
draw out of her Sabbath, that Sabbath which she 
respects, and which has been vitalised for her and 
rendered richer and more truly a source of strength 
by the fresh contribution the piety each passing 
generation has brought to it, the America of the 
inner life, the America that puts peace of soul and 
contentment of mind above everything else, will 
triumph over her lower self, that is consumed by the 
burning fever of competition and by a thirst for 
riches which every new acquisition only renders the 
more insatiable. 



XXV 

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

WHAT we call in France Vecole primaire 
is called in America a public or gram- 
mar school, and one of the first differ- 
ences to be noted between the two is that in America 
this school is in the hands of women. Men teachers 
may be found there, it is true, but rarely, and usu- 
ally in the position of principal, when a school is 
large enough to have a number of grades. It will 
be asked what results women obtain as regards dis- 
cipline and respect in the upper classes, where boys 
as old as fourteen or fifteen years are to be found, 
and experience gives a very satisfactory answer. 
Under feminine direction these boys on the border 
of adolescence not only maintain an attitude of 
respect, but they show themselves in general more 
tractable and docile in the hands of a woman who 
knows her business well, than under the direction 
of a man. 

The public schools are co-educational, boys and 

159 



160 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

girls belonging to the same classes. They are at- 
tended in great numbers, by pupils of all social 
grades. There are numerous private schools, many 
of which prepare the younger children for the pub- 
lic schools. I visited one of them, in Minneapolis, 
that has left a characteristic impression. In the en- 
trance hall we were attracted by a panoply of 
musical instruments suspended on the wall. We had 
arrived just before the opening of school, and the 
children were playing on the lawn that surrounded 
the building. At the stroke of a bell, a score of 
them came running, took down the instruments 
— principally violins — and began to play a lively 
march. At this signal the other children trooped 
in, and distributed themselves among the various 
class rooms of the different floors. As soon as all 
had reached their places, the young musicians hung 
up their instruments and went to their own classes. 
The session is generally opened by the reading 
of some passage, often chosen from sacred writers, 
that is intended to concentrate and elevate the mind. 
Sometimes the schools have a general assembly 
room where all the pupils pass the first few mo- 
ments of the day together. They sing and listen to 
a brief reading, sometimes followed by a prayer. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 161 

If there are announcements to be made to the chil- 
dren, this opportunity for it is taken. 

In the upper classes of these schools, civic mat- 
ters are the object of special lessons, in which an 
important part is left to the children themselves. 
They are asked to tell what they have seen or read 
that is of interest from the point of view of the 
general good of the city in which they live, or of 
the country at large. Discussion is allowed, and the 
session is usually animated. From time to time the 
children even propose sending a testimonial of 
respect to some citizen who has rendered a public 
service. By the lively fashion in which they enter 
into these discussions of public affairs, it is plainly 
seen that they begin early to give attention to poli- 
tics, in the broad and noble sense of the term. The 
Republic and its fortunes; the progress of civilisa- 
tion, material and moral; anything, indeed, that 
concerns the public spirit or public interests, at- 
tracts their attention. 

One quickly perceives that the national life is 
homogeneous, in spite of the extent of territory and 
diversity of inhabitants. The foundation of the 
country's institutions is not in question; the demo- 
cratic ideal is the ideal accepted by everybody. 



162 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

With us accord has not yet been reached upon this 
fundamental question; there is division among 
minds in spite of the homogeneity of the popula- 
tion. Under such conditions, questions which touch 
the public weal stir up animosities and contradic- 
tions, and for the sake of peace we must be silent 
in our schools on facts of great educational import, 
otherwise the teachers would seem to their pupils 
to take the part of one or another of our political 
factions. They are obliged to content themselves 
with teaching France in the abstract. Painful ex- 
perience brings us daily in contact with the fact 
that there is more than one France; but by force 
of persistent goodwill and a broader comprehen- 
sion of our true interests, we must in the end meet 
on common ground, and when that day comes, teach- 
ers may speak before their pupils of the country's 
men and affairs, without being accused of serving 
political ends. It will be a fine day to see ! We shall 
then enjoy the enviable privilege that America al- 
ready has. 

The public school is nowhere more interesting 
than in the newer states, and in growing cities. In 
one of the large public schools of Minneapolis, 
attended by hundreds of children, the principal 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 163 

was so kind as to assemble them for us in a long 
corridor. They stood in thick ranks, the big ones 
against the wall, the little ones in front, after the 
fashion of pipes in an organ. I had before me off- 
shoots of many nations, whose origin might well 
be recognised by the colour of their hair: — tow- 
headed Scandinavians, reminding one of the flax 
their mothers spin with the distaff in the long 
northern nights ; Irish with locks of auburn or car- 
rot or fiery red; dusky Italians, blond Germans. 
And the whole gamut of eyes, those beautiful chil- 
dren's eyes, that nothing on earth equals in charm 
and vivacity. I made a mental picture of the fami- 
lies from which these children came and of the 
ships that had brought them here, emigrants from 
all the corners of the earth ! 

;' At a signal from the teacher, the children sang 
the American national anthem. I heard it sung 
often, but at no other time did it produce such an 
effect upon me. Were not these the offspring of 
many peoples? And yet, one same ardent and pa- 
triotic conviction vibrated in all their voices, and 
animated all their faces. All these dear little chil- 
dren were celebrating America with one heart. In 
their song, transformed for me into a symbol, I 



164 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

found an expression of great facts that highly 
honour the hospitable land of which they are a 
product. I saw a vision of the great-hearted country 
whither those hasten who are driven from their 
native soil by lack of bread. Coming from regions 
darkened by deprivation and misery, they find here 
a place in the field of labour and in the sunshine of 
human dignity. Their children have decent clothing, 
a home to live in, and good food; these blooming 
faces alone show that. The adopted country has 
been kind, and they are grateful. To the right of 
asylum has been added the right of citizenship, con- 
ferring the legitimate pride of being citizens of the 
first Republic of the world. 

America is a good mother, who not only is pas- 
sionately loved by her own children, but also makes 
herself adored by her children by adoption. From 
the second generation all these newcomers and their 
descendants are Americans, are a new race. 

When we ask ourselves by what means America 
solves the great question of receiving and assimilat- 
ing the ceaseless tide of emigration which is for 
her at once a resource and a grave problem, we are 
impressed with the importance of the public school. 
It is the great organ of assimilation and digestion — 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 165 

the stomach of America. Here the children of every 
race come in contact with one another_, and here 
America treats them in that tolerant and hospitable 
spirit^ at once liberal and restrictive^ rigorous and 
kindly, which is, as it were, the temperament of 
her powerful and pacific democracy. And once im- 
bued with this spirit, they are hers ; for it is a spirit 
that elevates, gives dignity, inspires a just pride in 
the whole of which the newcomer has become a 
part, and such love for it that when he sings the 
national anthem, in which so much simple and pious 
love of the country and its history is mingled so 
naturally with an authentic and tolerant religious 
faith, he is giving expression to his own soul. He 
has become one with the starry flag; he is de- 
scended from the Pilgrim Fathers; Washington is 
his ancestor, the race of Lincoln is his. All this is 
expressed in four words that are often heard spoken 
with particular conviction: I am an American. 

One day in New York, I asked little Royal An- 
derson, nephew of my charming hostess. Miss 
Louise Sullivan, "Are you a kind boy?" He re- 
plied: " I am an American." It was worth while 
seeing his chest swell as he said it.. 



XXVI 

HIGH SCHOOLS 

IN every centre of sufficient importance there 
is a High School, which is also generally co- 
educational; it is the intermediate step be- 
tween the public school and the college, and pre- 
pares the majority of the American youth for their 
careers. These schools are generally in the heart 
of the population, within easy reach of all, for like 
the public schools they admit no boarding pupils. 
Science, mathematics, languages, literature and the 
arts are taught in them, music holding an important 
place, as in all the schools of the Republic. The 
high school buildings are spacious and well lighted. 
Along their wide corridors are excellent photogra- 
vures representing the monuments of antiquity, the 
chief masterpieces of European architecture, and 
celebrated paintings of the great masters, as well 
as plaster casts of the world's most remarkable 
works of sculpture. Among these reproductions, 

designed to form the artistic taste, portraits of great 

166 



HIGH SCHOOLS 167 

American citizens intended to personify the aspira- 
tions of the country and its ideals, and to perpetu- 
ate the great facts of its history, are always to be 
found. Among these and other figures that all 
humanity reveres, it is not rare to come upon the 
bust of Napoleon. I had already encountered it in 
business offices, in drawing-rooms, on the pediments 
of libraries; and here in the offices and corridors 
and class rooms of schools, I found it again. Un- 
questionably Napoleon is popular in America, and 
it is chiefly in his character of self-made man. His 
prodigious activity; his unswerving course over ob- 
stacles ; his almost superhuman destiny, that led him 
from an obscure origin to be the arbiter of the 
world — all these things give him an extraordinary 
eminence in the eyes of those who have not, like 
us, to wipe out the ill-starred past which is our 
legacy from his autocracy. When one recalls what 
role Napoleon and his laws have played in our sys- 
tem of education, and the traces his tyrant's hand 
has left upon our secondary schools for boys, it is 
with surprise that one looks upon his face in the 
free schools of a country with whose ideals the 
Napoleonic ferule presents so terrible a contrast. 
Along with her high schools, America possesses 



168 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

a quantity of institutions comparable in curriculum 
to our lycees and colleges, but falling far short of 
them in organisation and esprit de corps. These 
schools are very often in the country, beside a lake, 
on a hillside, or even in the heart of a wood. They 
receive boarding pupils, who fortunately escape the 
rigid monotony of the life in our schools, and most 
of its disadvantages. The dormitory has almost uni- 
versally disappeared, as also the too vast and gloomy 
dining-hall, and the school is distributed in a num- 
ber of buildings of ordinary dimensions, rather than 
confined to one huge barrack, permitting sleeping- 
and dining-rooms to have a homelike aspect. As to 
recreation, that is taken at large. No dingy galleries 
for exercise, no high walls, no horrible yard (hap- 
pily that is disappearing among us also !) paved 
with gravel and filled with dust, where a few sickly 
trees stand as symbols of the regime of the estab- 
lishment. One doesn't get the impression of being 
among a lot of convicts. Iron gratings, barred win- 
dows, gloomy parlours where visitors come to talk 
in hushed tones with the prisoners; pedantic regu- 
lations, sinister drum-calls — the whole system which 
we owe to the great man whose hat and cloak are 
so popular in America — all this is wanting in the 



HIGH SCHOOLS 169 

scholastic customs of the United States. A child can 
slip out of school without accompaniment of trum- 
pet and drum. The sports take place in the open; 
the key to the fields is in every pupil's pocket. The 
whole thing is absolutely without constraint, though 
not without discipline and superintendence. The 
character and conduct of the children are the obj ect 
of a surveillance quiet, but constant and effective; 
they are not persecuted, but they are never lost sight 
of. Their personal habits, their industry, and their 
truthfulness in word and deed, occupy the atten- 
tion of their teachers as much as does instruction 
itself. Above all, constant efforts are made to lead 
them to govern themselves and watch themselves. 
It is considered, and most justly, that good beha- 
viour which arises solely from the constant presence 
of the master, rests on a very poor foundation, and 
only awaits the occasion to become bad behaviour. 
That each pupil should be a somebody, be conscious 
of his dignity, take upon himself the responsibility 
for his acts, and preside over the republic within 
him — ^this is the aim toward which education is 
directed. It is education for freedom, conducted 
through a personal discipline, the education of 
" self-control." 



170 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

As soon as the self-control begins to be exercised, 
the discipline becomes easy. Each one preserves it 
in the matters which concern him, and the lamen- 
table coercive measures that enfeeble the will are 
looked upon as directly contrary to the purposes of 
education. Most of these schools have infirmaries, 
generally in some attractive corner apart, and one 
or more nurses care for the young patients, who 
by no means seem unhappy there. 

The appearance of American schoolboys and 
schoolgirls is happy in general, as one may readily 
observe when they are assembled in the larger 
rooms for the opening of the school. It is a pleas- 
ure to look from one to another of these faces that 
radiate health and good-humour. 

Matters of hygiene are carefully considered, and 
too long periods are never allowed to pass without 
some relaxation. When this is in the form of exer- 
cise in the open air, the children frequently take 
a shower-bath afterward, to prevent drowsiness in 
class, and to guard against colds. In the midst of 
the recitation periods there is often a break of five 
or ten minutes during which the children take a 
little exhilarating exercise where they are. A piano 
in the corridor gives the signal, and the pupils in 



HIGH SCHOOLS 171 

the different class rooms, under direction of their 
teachers, execute a series of well-chosen move- 
ments. This sets their blood circulating afresh, 
quiets their restlessness, and stimulates them to 
work. 



XXVII 

UNIVERSITIES 

AMONG the American universities situated 
in large cities_, I saw in particular those 
at New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chi- 
cago, Minneapolis, and Toronto, but by a happy 
combination of circumstances, an important part of 
American university life long ago sought refuge in 
the silence and pure air of the country. Among 
establishments of the latter sort that I visited, 
sometimes tarrying a little, should be named Har- 
vard, Oberlin, Mount Holyoke College, and Vassar. 
Harvard is everywhere known as a great miiver- 
sity for men. Situated at the gates of Boston, a city 
of traditions, full of scholastic memories and dis- 
posed to letters, science and art. Harvard has been 
richly endowed by friends old and new, and is the 
alma mater of a long line of illustrious Americans, 
including President Roosevelt. Harvard and its 
rival in sports and learning, Yale, are centres from 
which light radiates afar. Oberlin is less well known 

in France, and yet, this university of the State of 

172 



UNIVERSITIES 173 

Ohio bears the name of an illustrious Frenchman, 
Oberlin, the great pastor living at Ban-de-la-Roche 
at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 
nineteenth century. This Alsatian pastor was the 
pioneer in an original and active kind of piety; 
to give a body to the Gospel doctrine, he used not 
only language but also the pickaxe and all the im- 
plements of the roads and fields, translating the 
Bible into practical deeds, civilisation, and social 
institutions. He has so impressed the mind of a 
nation of people who have broken ground, and built, 
and civilised as no others ever did, that they have 
made him one of their models, and perpetuated 
his name in one of their universities. 

Oberlin is situated far from cities, in a grassy 
and slightly rolling region, near a small village of 
the same name. As at all the universities similarly 
placed, the houses of the members of the faculty 
line broad avenues, while a series of spacious build- 
ings, spreading over an extensive campus turfed 
and planted with trees, contain the laboratories, the 
lecture and study rooms, the library, the art mu- 
seum and the conservatory of music. Excepting cer- 
tain departments of medicine, which demand the 
proximity of large cities and their hospitals, all 



174 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the branches of human knowledge are taught here. 
The University is co-educational, and the number 
of men and women students is about equal. In the 
centre of the numerous ivy-covered buildings which 
make up the university group_, stands a church, and 
here all these young people assemble every morn- 
ing together with their instructors, to begin the 
day with religious exercises. The conservatory of 
music, whose courses are very popular, and which 
gives artistic advantages of a very high order, con- 
tains an auditorium where one of the largest organs 
in the United States is at present being set up. The 
students are formed into choral and other musical 
societies ; they are grouped besides into all sorts of 
societies whose purpose is mental or moral culture. 
Practically the whole student body is attached to 
the various athletic and gymnastic clubs. And so 
the University is a sort of humming hive in the 
midst of a happy, cheerful solitude; it is a little 
world that in its studious isolation and the harvests 
of its toil, recalls the sacred groves of the muses. 
The pursuit of knowledge here is surrounded by 
an atmosphere of peace, and through the perpetual 
contact of a great number of hard-working stu- 
dents, study attains a considerable degree of in- 



UNIVERSITIES 175 

tensity, yet without detriment to the physical life. 
You are conscious of contentment in the air, and 
the dominance of a healthy spirit. All these young 
people bear in their faces signs of a normal and 
well-balanced existence; in fine, they pass here 
some of the happiest of their years. I was able to 
convince myself of this, as a general fact regard- 
ing American colleges, not only by the daily round 
as I observed it in the different ones I visited, and 
by the tone dominant in them, but also by the memo- 
ries of college days left in the hearts of those who 
have once shared in them. Everywhere I met men 
and women who spoke with emotion and gratitude 
of the years spent in college. 

Oberlin draws its students from the middle 
classes more than Harvard or Yale, her young peo- 
ple frequently having their own way to make, and 
only themselves to count upon. Here at the Univer- 
sity they live in dormitories near the lecture halls. 
The men's dormitories have no kitchen and dining- 
room attached, but the women's dormitories have 
both, and here, in groups of from twelve to twenty 
at a table, with animated conversation and much 
gaiety, all the students, men and women, take their 
meals together. I always enjoyed very specially 



176 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the sight of these groups at table, to which the 
presence of the two sexes gave a note of originality, 
and whose effect upo« their mutual education is so 
salutary. 

Young as they are in comparison with our old 
European universities, the American universities 
and colleges have their histories, which are rever- 
ently preserved; it would seem that America is so 
much the more careful of her souvenirs because of 
the lesser extent of time she has had from which to 
gather them. The names and remembrance of the 
donors of libraries, museums, laboratories, or obser- 
vatories are everywhere preserved, and there is al- 
ways some tablet or monument to honour the names 
of a university's sons who have distinguished them- 
selves in the world, the choicest places being re- 
served for those who have performed some act of 
self-sacrifice. 

The chief military school of the United States, 
at West Point on the Hudson, commemorates espe- 
cially the names and deeds of heroes in war. West 
Point is an eyrie perched on rock that falls perpen- 
dicularly to the river. When you reach the top you 
discover a plateau of great extent, on which are 
immense barracks, study and lecture halls, and a 



UNIVERSITIES 177 

parade ground where at the moment of our arrival 
the whole population of the school was marching 
with music and spread banners. The cadets carry 
themselves superbly. They spend at least half their 
time in physical exercise. One of their sports, very 
popular and demanding excellent horsemanship, 
consists in striking balls from horseback. Armed 
with long-handled mallets, the players dash over 
the grassy field, and the skill of their evolutions is 
sometimes astounding. 

Among the immense buildings of the Military 
School is one designed for war relics. Memorial 
Hall. Not one of America's sons falls on the field 
of battle, that his name is not graven there, amid 
the busts or portraits of fallen generals and paint- 
ings of the scenes of war. In this building are vast 
apartments where anniversaries are celebrated, at 
which guests, in some way connected with the army, 
are received in numbers. Those are great dates of 
patriotic sentiment, a sentiment which, however 
much more notably displayed in the memorials of 
West Point, is no less constant and responsive 
throughout the American schools. 



XXVIII 

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 

SUCH is the present name of one of the old- 
est educational institutions for women in 
the United States, or in the world. This 
College of the " Sacred Oak/' founded as a sem- 
inary in 1836, and chartered as a college in 1888, 
is situated at the foot of Mount Holyoke, in the 
beautiful hill country of Massachusetts. It is 
reached by trolley in a half-hour from the railway 
station. A pretty village lies near it, otherwise the 
open, and complete solitude. 

The original building, together with two or three 
others that had grown up around it, was utterly 
destroyed by fire, in 1896, and for the moment it 
seemed as though the very life of the institution 
were wiped out. But it had too vigorous root in the 
affections of the alumnae scattered throughout the 
country to remain buried imder its ashes. The walls 
were raised again, but upon another scale, and 

twenty different buildings came to replace the two 

178 



MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 179 

or three. Now Mount Holyoke College salutes you 
from afar with the smile of its ivy-covered build- 
ings. Here is the library, there the Memorial Art 
Building, yonder are the gymnasium and swimming- 
pool. Beyond lies Mary Lyon Hall, including the 
beautiful and capacious chapel; then the plant 
houses, the hospital, the laboratories, lecture halls 
and dormitories, and the observatory. This last 
building was shown me by a woman astronomer who 
spends her whole time there, giving lectures both 
by day and by night. Some very pretty houses, 
situated a little apart, are the homes of those pro- 
fessors who prefer some solitude. All the members 
of the faculty save two or three are women. I visited 
a class in chemistry and saw a score of students, in- 
cased in white aprons from head to foot, experi- 
menting with ferments. The seriousness with which 
they observed their test tubes and made note of 
their observations, gave them the air of alchemists 
seeking the philosopher's stone. In certain Ameri- 
can industries women find very agreeable and lucra- 
tive positions as chemists. 

In the conservatories I found a number of young 
women occupied in the study or care of the plants, 
and in the Art Building groups of them were draw- 



180 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

ing, painting, modelling, or busy with work relative 
to architecture and house decoration. 

Several hundred students came together to listen 
to my lecture in French, and I had the pleasure of 
perceiving that they understood the language very 
well indeed. The head of the French department is 
a highly cultivated young woman, who has spent 
several years in Paris, where she followed among 
other courses those of M. Gaston Paris. At my lec- 
ture in English, I had before me the whole student 
body, a kindly and receptive audience that it is a 
great pleasure to address, and that sustains and in- 
spires you by its sympathy. 

I had been invited to dinner at the house of the 
dean, where she lives in the midst of a hundred or 
more students. There were six or seven tables, and 
the ladies themselves served, which I found alto- 
gether charming. Inquiring into this detail, I 
learned that all the students have a share in the 
domestic affairs of the college, and an important 
part of the work is done by them, the corps of 
servants being thus reduced to a minimum. The 
class-room work does not suffer on this account, 
for a little physical labour is a relaxation, and re- 
stores disturbed mental equilibrium; and the purse 



MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 181 

gains by it, too, the expense for board being les- 
sened by this very practical arrangement. I had 
also the pleasure of seeing the corridors of the 
house swept by cultivated and attractive young 
women, who with broom in hand appeared to me 
prettier than ever. Already I had been told how 
some courageous ones among the students as com- 
panions and in various lucrative employments, and 
others even as teachers in the secondary schools, 
had earned the money necessary for their college 
course. 

I chanced to be at Mount Holyoke the evening 
of the day on which President Roosevelt was 
elected, and the college, calm to outward appear- 
ance, was in a state of agitation within. During 
my lecture, while the result of the election was as 
yet unknown, I made allusion to the exciting event 
of the day, looking upon the success of Mr. Roose- 
velt as certain. Instantly there was an outburst of 
joy in the audience, a thousand handkerchiefs were 
waved frantically, and a vigorous stamping of 
feet was heard throughout the hall. The next morn- 
ing, when the truth was learned, the jollification 
knew no bounds. For two hours we heard patriotic 
songs, college songs, and peculiar cries that Amer- 



182 :MY impressions of AMERICA 

ican students of both sexes use to express their 
satisfaction. These cries, in which the women are 
by no means outdone by the men, are given with 
an energy I should qualify as savage, and I have 
no doubt in my own mind that they originated with 
the primitive redskins. 

Women do not vote in the United States. To 
make amends for this deficiency, the young women 
of Mount Holyoke had decided to hold a private 
election the day before the public one. They had 
observed minutely all the usages, following out a 
campaign in the college newspaper, holding meet- 
ings and posting placards. On the appointed day 
the vote was taken with the strictest formalities, 
even special policemen — or more exactly, police- 
women — being appointed, in conformity with the 
prevailing custom, " to prevent bribery." The re- 
sult of the election was a formidable majority in 
favour of President Roosevelt. Some days later, at 
the White House, I related these amusing details 
to Mr. Roosevelt, who laughed over them heartily. 

Before leaving Mount Holyoke, I was present at 
the laying of the corner-stone of a new and im- 
portant building, whose walls, indeed, had already 
a considerable elevation. By the paths which wind 



MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 183 

about the lawns, between beautiful sycamores, I 
saw advancing toward the chapel, where a part of 
the ceremony was to be performed, a long and 
stately procession, the whole college body and their 
guests, in ermine, caps and gowns. A choir composed 
of two hundred young women in white surplices, 
preceded the train. The President of the College 
and several dignitaries from neighbouring colleges 
made speeches, and there was some wonderful 
chorus singing. The remainder of the day was given 
up to general merry-making. 

Merry-making is often in the college programme, 
and outdoor sports, daily exercise, wholesome food 
and a normal existence generally, without too much 
fuss over examinations, make for these studious 
young people a very happy life. 



XXIX 
DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA 

AMONG the marks of kind friendship 
whose remembrance wiU always remain 
precious to us_, it is impossible to pass 
over the one which came from Temple College in 
Philadelphia; but before telling the story of how 
the doctor's degree was conferred upon us, let me 
present Dr. Conwell, the distinguished President 
of the College. 

Dr. Conwell is tall, spare, dark and wiry, with 
an expressive face marked by an aquiline nose and 
lighted by the sombre fires of kind but penetrating 
eyes. A part of his life was spent in journeying 
around the world, and at one time he followed the 
perilous occupation of war correspondent in the 
Far East. After accumulating all this experience, 
he underwent an inner transformation from which 
his mind emerged animated by ardent religious con- 
victions, and he became a preacher and a teacher, 
transporting the splendid ardour of the globe- 
trotter to the field of religious and social activity. 

Equipped with a great store of practical knowledge, 

184 



DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA 185 

and with wide learning; endowed with an iron con- 
stitution and at the same time with a versatility of 
mind that renders him broad, tolerant and cordial 
in his relations, he gives the benefit of all these fine 
qualities to his work. As a result of years of cease- 
less labour on his part, including lecture tours from 
one end of the United States to the other, Philadel- 
phia owes to him her largest Baptist church, and 
the creation of a very complete college of the popu- 
lar order. 

The church seats over three thousand people, but 
Dr. Conwell, abreast of all the possibilities of the 
day, has had a highly perfected telephonic appara- 
tus set up in it, thus enabling the preacher to have a 
congregation considerably beyond the church's ca- 
pacity. The primary obj ect of this arrangement was 
purely humanitarian and neighbourly — to make 
it possible for the patients of a hospital in the 
vicinity to take part in the service. Half a dozen 
receivers, suspended in front of the pulpit, trans- 
mit not only the voice of the preacher but the music 
of the organ, choir, and congregation, so that the 
patients in their beds, by the use of headpiece 
receivers, are able to follow the church service 
throughout. The apparatus once installed, however. 



18G UY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

its use far outran the first intention. By simply 
giving notice a day in advance, any telephone sub- 
scriber may put himself in communication with 
" The Temple " for the duration of the service. 
What wonderful possibilities in such an arrange- 
ment ! 

The first time I saw Dr. Conwell he was in the 
pulpit. It was nearly ten o'clock on a Sunday even- 
ing, and he was preaching while awaiting my arrival 
from a distant quarter of the city, whence I was 
coming to greet his congregation. His sermon was 
directed against certain social crimes which offend 
or defraud God in the person of men. With unspar- 
ing clearness he was pointing out one by one the 
cases where, because of base interests or brutal 
egoism, we, in the very height of our civilisation, 
deprive men, women and children of their right to 
life, liberty, mental enlightenment, and moral 
growth ; and as he enumerated these things, he cried 
with passionate force that lent his words the 
majesty of vengeance: " You rob God! " 

Several times afterward Dr. Conwell invited roe 
to speak before his great congregation, and in long 
talks which we had together I learned all about 
the splendid work accomplished in the church and 



DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA 187 

in the college standing beside it and bearing its 
name. 

Temple College, with its hundreds of students 
and a faculty of distinguished professors, both men 
and women, aims specially to make study acces- 
sible to any one whomsoever that has capacity for it. 
One section of the work is carried on wholly in 
the evening. Here workingmen, clerks and other 
people employed during the day, come to follow 
the lectures, and in the course of years are able 
to get a degree. The College is a great, beneficent 
human hive, where intelligent working men and 
women may receive an initiation into the intellec- 
tual life. This is the college that was pleased to offer 
me a doctor's degree, extending this same courtesy 
to my travelling companion, and the character and 
aims of the institution made us so much the more 
appreciative of the offer, which we cordially ac- 
cepted. 

The twenty-third of November was the time set 
for the ceremony. On that day, surrounded by the 
whole corps of professors, we entered the hall, 
which was overflowing with a sympathetic audience. 
It was not for us alone that the tribute was in- 
tended, but through us for France herself, as was 



188 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

very plainly to be seen. The whole great hall, with 
its spacious platforms and galleries, was draped 
with the mingled colours of France and America ; as 
the first number on the programme, the Marseil- 
laise was sung by a quartet, with inspiring vigour, 
and in all the speeches allusions were made to the 
sister Republic. One of these speeches was given by 
the Mayor of Philadelphia, who profited by the 
occasion to make known the fact that he himself 
was once a student at Temple College. He had been 
started on his upward career by this fostering 
mother of those who must study at night while they 
earn their living by day. 

Every allusion to France turned the ready ap- 
plause of the enthusiastic crowd into a general dem- 
onstration. " Tell your fellow-citizens, and repeat 
it again and again," the orators who succeeded one 
another on the platform, in turn, enjoined upon us, 
*' tell your fellow-citizens in what vital friendship 
we hold their country, and how much we desire that 
she should be strong, prosperous, and animated by 
the spirit which makes democracies powerful." 

Then they gave us insignia, caps and parchments, 
in order that we might have symbols of this hour 
to put away among our treasures. 



XXX 

A QUAKER REFORMATORY 

I HAD just been to visit, near Philadelphia, in 
an attractive section of country where open 
fields, farms, and half-dismantled forests suc- 
ceed one another, a fine co-educational school under 
the direction of the Friends. " Now," said Mr. 
Joseph Elkinton, the merchant, and speaker in the 
Friends' meetings, " come let me show you another 
institution, one for wayward boys and young men/* 
We set out, a jolting journey over ill-kept cross- 
roads, and soon arrived at a sort of city, built on 
a broad-backed hill, and made up of a score of build- 
ings. This was our destination. I could not believe 
my eyes. For a house of correction, the place lacks 
utterly the prescribed physiognomy. To begin with, 
there are no walls, not even a palisade, not even a 
detaining wire; the inmates may come and go at 
will. To a question on the subject, Mr. Elkinton 
replied with a quizzical smile: "That's to prevent 
evasions." It seems that nothing keeps people from 
running away, like giving them the freedom to do 

189 



190 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

so at any moment. This absence of barriers^ gates, 
bolts and ferocious guards, provided me with much 
food for reflection, and I ended by finding it per- 
fectly in accord with the principles of these Friends, 
so humane in all things. In fact, though they are 
true believers, having the faith that removes moun- 
tains, they have not built about their spiritual city 
those walls called creeds — they would not suffer 
a barrier that should confine the breathings of the 
Spirit or the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. 
And the same reasons for which they lack the eccle- 
siastical fibre, make them halt at coercive measures, 
even in the case of youthful delinquents. Ah, how 
well I understand these things, and how admirable 
this faith in freedom seems to me ! 

As we approached the buildings, which are dis- 
posed in order on either side a broad avenue, with 
the superintendent's office at the end, I noticed they 
were all overgrown with ivy; not the ivy we know 
in France; that could not endure the rigorous 
American winters ; but an ivy which loses its foliage 
in autunm. Before falling, the leaves take on beau- 
tiful shades ranging from pink to deep purple. 
You would have said of these buildings that splen- 
did sunset fires were caressing their stone-work and 



A QUAKER REFORMATORY 191 

casements. It was so charming, that the smiling 
spot seemed rather a privileged dwelling where 
virtue was to be rewarded, than the abode of se- 
verity for the .correction of vice. More than one 
soul imbued with the classic principles of the heavy 
hand, would have felt derision rising within. 

Mr. Elkinton pointed out a building in process 
of construction, where the carpenters were about 
to place the girders. " The older boys of the insti- 
tution," he said, " are building this house under the 
direction of skilled workmen. It is a part of our 
system to have our labour done by the people most 
interested.'* 

We began a round of the buildings, visiting 
workshops and school rooms. The school is in 
session only in the morning, except for the younger 
children, who attend equally in the afternoon, when 
the shops open for the older boys. We watched the 
making of shoes, clothing, and furniture, saw a 
newspaper printed and clothes laundered, the little 
fellows ironing their blouses with electric irons. One 
iron in contact with a current may be used indefi- 
nitely, and there are no fumes of gas and no 
smudges. None of these children had the air of 
constraint I had always observed hitherto in insti- 



192 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

tutions of the kind. We met some coming in from 
the fields, marching in rank and file like soldiers, 
but the expression of their faces was that of boys 
contented with their lot. Mr. Elkinton told me 
that the fundamental principle of the place is the 
restoration of the sentiment of human dignity^ in 
each and every hoy. The past is never mentioned, 
but is looked upon as pardoned and forgotten. It 
is thought better to stimulate the heroic fibre in 
the boys, than to weaken or discourage them by a 
too vivid and persistent sense of their faults. 

We visited the houses in which they lived. These 
are well kept and manifestly respected, with none 
of the traces of degradation that show a man lack- 
ing in regard for his home. On the tables spread 
for dinner, the glasses and dishes were immaculate, 
and the napkins, if you will believe me, were folded 
coquettishly. Everything was a reminder that those 
who sit down at the little tables for six, are 
looked upon as individuals, not as numbers. While 
we were going through the gymnasium, with its 
swimming-tanks, a chime of bells began to sound 
in the clock tower. " Is it mechanical? " I asked. 
" No," said Mr. Elkinton, " one of the boys is play- 
ing it. He is a skilful musician. We think soothing 



A QUAKER REFORMATORY 193 

or cheerful music may have a good effect upon the 
children, especially when they are resting and can 
listen quietly." 

After we had completed our tour of inspection, 
we were given an opportmiity of seeing, in the 
superintendent's office, a number of very remark- 
able albums containing pictures of all the past 
generations of the school. Each child has, first, a 
short biography, in two parts, his record before and 
during his life there, and above these biographic 
details are two photographs. One is taken upon his 
entrance, generally at the moment of his arrival; 
the faces of this group are pale and sly, or con- 
strained and hypocritical. The other photograph 
shows the same pupil on the day of his departure, 
and between the two there are often very striking 
differences. Against a minority of the boys who 
seem not to have profited by their experience, stands 
a great majority whose faces reveal a complete 
transformation. 

I had a long talk with the superintendent and a 
number of his immediate assistants. They are all 
Friends, though there is not a single Quaker child 
among the poor young inmates of the refuge. In 
every case I was impressed with the faith of these 



194 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

men in man and in childhood; they are much less 
concerned with unearthing the native corruption in 
men^ than with discovering in each one of them 
some trace of the image of God. They love these 
children, without assuming the patronising attitude 
toward them of the just who consent to put them- 
selves into contact with the unjust. They are true 
disciples of the Master who took upon himself the 
sins of others. They beat their own breasts because 
children have fallen, victims often of our vicious 
social conditions; and they love these children be- 
cause of their misfortune. Out of very natural 
curiosity, I asked the boys if any of them were 
French. One little fellow raised his hand. 

" Where do you come from ? " I asked. 

" From Vincennes." 

"And I, from Fontenay-sous-Bois," I replied; 
whereupon we shook hands in token of neighbour- 
liness. 

These Quakers are fine people. Their stern dis- 
regard of formulas and conventions, and their na- 
tive and benevolent simplicity won my heart. I 
recompensed my hosts for the many spiritual bene- 
fits procured by their fraternal society and the sight 
of their vigorous activity, by appropriating, with the 



A QUAKER REFORMATORY 195 

simple formality of pocketing it, an attractive in- 
scription that was fastened to the wall in the super- 
intendent's office. And what was it? A "creed" 
whose perusal had moved me even to tears. " The 
school teachers' creed/' it is called, and it begins 
thus : " I believe in boys and girls." Here we have 
it, that faith in man, without which all our faith 
crumbles to pessimism and dust. If you distrust 
man and his works ; if you have no faith in the hus- 
bandry of this world, but look upon the present 
economy as an enterprise badly begun, destined to 
failure, and to be indemnified only in the beyond, 
you offer an injustice to God, in whom you profess 
to believe, and whom you think to glorify by repu- 
diating man. For the responsible author of this 
present world is He ; His honour is involved before 
ours. I shall never restore to those dear Friends the 
bit of pasteboard I purloined from them, but shall 
read over and over again the valiant and ringing 
school teachers' creed: " I believe in boys and 
girls." 



XXXI 

THE BOWERY MISSION 

ONE day I called upon Mr. Klopsch, the 
devoted editor of the Christian Herald, 
which is the centre of so much active 
benevolence and so many efforts for the betterment 
of mankind. " Will you go with me to the Bowery 
Mission some night ? " he asked ; " you would en- 
counter there the most pitiable specimens of home- 
less men the city can show." 

An engagement was immediately made for Mon- 
day the twenty-eighth of November, and toward 
eleven o'clock on the night of that day, Mr. Klopsch 
appeared at the club where I had been passing with 
friends one of my rare free evenings. The weather 
was cold, and a thin fog enveloped the town. We 
drove for nearly an hour to reach the quarter of 
the East Side where the mission is situated. 

The long, narrow room was closely packed with 

men. On the platform, where an organ stood, were 

a number of people connected with the mission, 

among them an old lady whose life is wholly de- 

196 



THE BOWERY MISSION 197 

voted to the work. It was now midnight. As I took 
my place in the centre of the group, I noticed in 
front of us a railing intended as a rest for the 
hands, and instantly it produced upon me the im- 
pression of being cited before the bar of some in- 
visible tribunal, where Misery was sitting, attended 
by a very " court of miracles " — a muster of mis- 
fortune from all the ends of the earth. I sat awhile 
in a sort of soul stupor, until fortunately the organ 
began to play and the people to sing. 

Then I could observe this accumulation of the 
dregs of the nations. There was not a single woman, 
but every man bore the marks of defeat; not as 
though routed in some late battle, and still bewil- 
dered by dreadful visions of the fight; but van- 
quished long ago, and too nearly trampled out and 
annihilated now, to remember. Their faces repre- 
sented types of every country, at the same time 
showing each of them to be a man without a 
country. At the sight, involuntarily one questioned 
within himself: *' Italian, German, Frenchman, of 
what good to you are your King, your Emperor, 
your Republic.^" They had fallen without the 
meshes that enclose the prudent among their fellow- 
countrymen, into the great drag-net of misfortune; 



198 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

and there they lay, victims of their idleness, their 
drunkenness, their want of character, or the brutal 
circumstances against which the little skiff wherein 
they had embarked their life was shattered. From 
my place I made them personal visits, observing 
them carefully, one by one, and among these hun- 
dreds of wrecks of men, there was not one bad 
face. There was diversity under the sordid uni- 
formity of rags ; here were bearded men and smooth- 
faced, bald men and hirsute, and a disproportion- 
ate number were one-eyed. By how many different 
paths had their lives, once fresh and full of hope, 
come to this downfall, this demolition that was con- 
densing and confusing them in a dark residue at 
the bottom of the social alembic? They seemed to 
me so great in their absolute nothingness, that sud- 
denly the whole of respectable middle-class exist- 
ence was obscured in their shadow, and some in- 
visible hand removed from me all the store upon 
which a man ordinarily draws when he speaks to 
his fellows who have a bed to lie on and a table 
at which to sit, who carry about them that passport 
called money, and are animated by the breath of 
that soul of the social life — credit. Out of sympathy, 
I felt myself reduced to utter helplessness, to a 



THE BOWERY MISSION 199 

humanity stripped, wounded, and miserable, until I 
became their equal. And when I rose to call them 
" brothers," I saw in the midst of them the spirit 
of suffering humanity, the Son of man, who had 
not where to lay his head. Never was I more deeply 
conscious of strength from the power to speak in 
his name; and never had the judgment, at once 
merciful and inexorable, that he pronounced upon 
our vanities and the hollowness of our comfortable 
Christianity, seemed more scathing. That night I 
learned one of those lessons that fill the soul with 
grief, with anguish. 

Had these men any knowledge of the preter- 
natural effect they made upon me.^* Evidently not; 
but they listened with goodwill to what I said 
aloud, as I had listened in silence to their silent 
speech. Then I stepped down from the platform, 
and begged them to show by their uplifted hands 
who among them spoke English, French, or Ger- 
man, the only languages in which I could make 
myself understood; and I conversed with them in- 
dividually. Their short biographies, all ending 
badly, reminded me of a succession of evil tidings, 
one report after another announcing a new catas- 
trophe. Among the Frenchmen with whom I talked 



200 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

was a former teacher of Marseilles, not yet fifty 
years old. By what hazards of ill fortune had he 
made his way from the class-rooms of the Normal 
School to this place? 

As the hour for closing approached, cups of 
coffee were passed along the ranks, and there was 
a generous distribution of bread when the men went 
out. " Where will they sleep } " I asked myself, as 
I watched the dark column disperse in the foggy 
night; and a vision of them pursued me, a lamen- 
table and distressful vision, holding before my mind 
the grievous problem of human vagabondage. 



XXXII 

LECTURES AND AUDIENCES 

IN spite of our utmost precaution we are con- 
tinually meeting with the unexpected, and it 
is sure to play a considerable part in a lecture 
tour. From twenty-five or thirty addresses, the con- 
servative number at first determined upon in order 
to avoid overexertion, we had soon engaged for 
twice as many; and by the middle of October, even 
that number was exceeded. But as new invitations 
continued to arrive daily, the first dates soon made 
no more than an outline, and into the time yet avail- 
able between them, engagements of minor impor- 
tance were gradually slipped, for the afternoon 
hours and even for mornings. At the cost of a strug- 
gle, renewed with every incoming mail, the great 
majority of these requests were finally eliminated; 
but after all this sifting, the columns in which our 
itinerary was recorded were black with unavoidable 
engagements. Sometimes, in the midst of all this 
pressure, it happened that two lectures got booked 

for the same hour, and then it was necessary to 

201 



202 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

resort to a sort of legerdemain_, in order to satisfy 
everybody. 

But all labour becomes easy through the satis- 
faction one gets out of it. If public speaking is 
one of the most dreadful of ordeals, when a luke- 
warm audience must be faced, or a hostile one has 
to be opposed, it is, on the contrary, an unparalleled 
joy to meet audiences that are sympathetic and 
responsive; America offered so many of these, and 
with such regularity, that each opportunity for ad- 
dressing them was a new delight. 

First let us speak of those club meetings which 
are almost family parties. All the men's clubs have 
" ladies' nights," when the members may bring 
their wives and grown-up children with them. 
These are private occasions, and marked by much 
sociability. Before the lecture, there is general con- 
versation, and if the speaker of the evening arrives 
in time, he makes the acquaintance of those who 
are about to be his listeners. After the lecture, 
questions are asked, and the evening ends with re- 
freshments. Under such conditions, you gather in 
a single hour a quantity of information and im- 
pressions, and the perfect cordiality on all sides 
gives these meetings a charm no one could resist. 



LECTURES AND AUDIENCES 203 

In a church, a theatre or a public hall, the en- 
larged and diiFerent setting forbids such famil- 
iarity as this, yet your auditors may encourage 
you, and render your task easy. The reception 
alone, though it be a silent one, that a friendly 
house gives you, is like a welcome and an invitation 
to feel yourself at home. How many things the 
faces of an assembled audience may say to the 
stranger appearing before them ! I never tired of 
looking out over American audiences during that 
moment preceding the lecture in which the chair- 
man of the evening introduces the orator, and the 
listeners, while giving heed to what he says, have 
their eyes fixed upon the guest who is to follow 
him. The smiling and paternal countenances of old 
men, the self-contained and serious faces of mid- 
dle age, and the alert attitude of the younger peo- 
ple — how many silent and significant intimations 
they give in that moment! I found an air of good- 
will, sincerity, and manly right-mindedness about 
American audiences, and they have left with me an 
impression of ranks upon ranks of fine people. 

But it was in the schools and universities, before 
audiences made up almost exclusively of young 
people, that a veritable revelation awaited me. I 



204 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

have always loved youth, and it is my hope to love, 
understand and serve it better year by year. The 
young people of my own land have given me bounti- 
ful affection and grateful and confiding tenderness ; 
but across the sea I made a new experience, under 
different circumstances, and I was happy to find 
that by a sort of wireless telegraphy I came in- 
stantly into relation with these young and respon- 
sive audiences. I shall always see them — at Oberlin, 
Vassar, Mount Holyoke, Boston, Chicago, Phila- 
delphia, New York, Lafayette, and everywhere 
else, always equally attentive and earnest. 

One thing that struck me in all gatherings of 
Americans, of whatever age, and in all encounters 
with individuals, was the fact that true Americans 
are not given to blague — to lying " for the fun of 
it." This strain, which is indulged a little too freely 
among us, and in some cases so habitually as to 
become monotonous, is not found among them. Not 
that they are averse to laughter — quite the con- 
trary ! They are marked by a love of it that is 
youthful and healthful, and are quick to seize upon 
every humourous turn of thought and emphasise it 
by a discreet smile or a hilarious outburst ; but while 
they laugh, they remain sincere. 



LECTURES AND AUDIENCES 205 

The twenty-seventh of November, a Sunday I 
shall always remember as having brought me into 
contact with more than ten thousand auditors, I saw 
€mong other things, this marvellous sight. Under 
the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, whose splendid work has made its way into 
every quarter of the earth, a mass-meeting had been 
arranged for the afternoon, in the Metropolitan 
Opera House of New York. There I was confronted 
by three thousand men, who, for the most part 
clean-shaven, gave a splendid impression of ruddy 
health. Their fixed attention, given me in advance, 
was a revelation of concentrated strength ; it was like 
a rampart of resolute wills. I felt as though I were 
before a company ready for battle, whose inflexible 
courage needed only to be aroused by some ringing 
appeal. Such an audience transports and inspires 
the one who is to address it, and he gives himself to 
it, whole-hearted, fired with the will to sow his life 
broadcast there, if need be: it would fall upon 
ground worthy of the best seed ! But when a man 
comes into contact with such generous natures, he 
receives more than he gives, and goes away not im- 
poverished, but enriched with moral force. 

At the close of these lectures, a part of the au- 



206 :MY impressions of AMERICA 

dience always comes forward; it is the time for 
the shaking of hands and other demonstrations of 
brotherhood. One evenings in a great college where 
thousands of young women pursue their studies, I 
saw the whole body of them pass before me in this 
way. Seated at ease, I grasped the hand of each of 
these studious children — dear hope of their mother- 
country — and I had leisure to observe their faces, 
their different types, and whatever else may be re- 
vealed at a glance. There were few among them who 
did not appear robust; the very great number, vig- 
orous, self-reliant and smiling, were a pleasure to 
behold, with their air of si3lendid health, that ac- 
cords so well with the grace of twenty years. And I 
thought of their parents, of all the riches of tender- 
ness poured out upon them, and of the great Repub- 
lic in which they were to take their places as wives 
and mothers. I got into personal touch with each one, 
learning from a word in passing, things good and 
gracious — the things that make humanity lovable. 

So you see how it was that a tour comprehending 
a hundred and fifty lectures, sermons, and ad- 
dresses of all sorts, numerous social functions and 
thousands of miles of travel, could leave behind it 
the impression of a pleasure trip. 



XXXIII 

A LESSON CARRIED FROM THE 
BLIND TO THOSE WHO SEE 

ON the twenty-third of November, in the 
early hours of the morning, I arrived at 
Overbrook Asylum, near Philadelphia, 
which shelters a great number of blind people of 
all ages. It was the morning following my second 
day at Washington, a very busy day, whose fatigue 
had been dispelled by a night in the sleeping-car. 

The white walls of Overbrook shone from afar, 
as we made our way across the country in the face 
of a gentle and invigorating breeze. We were not 
long in reaching the home, which we visited in 
detail, and I mused upon the fact that by a single 
glance into the rooms and courts I was seeing more 
of them than their inhabitants would ever see. 

Our inspection ended in the great auditorium — 

such a one as is found in every American institution 

— where all the inmates of the home were then 

assembled, young and old, of both sexes, a very 

large number of them being children. Mrs. Wood, 

207 



208 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the devoted wife of the blind organist^ sang Men- 
delssohn's " Lobgesang " magnificently, and her 
husband played some organ music. During the mo- 
ment's silence at the beginning, I had been im- 
pressed and saddened by the pall of night over all 
these faces — of men, women and children. Some of 
them wore dark glasses to protect and hide their 
poor eyes incapable of seeing, but not of suffering ; 
in other cases the great, hollow vacancies seemed 
like denuded hearths, inhabited by nothing but re- 
gret for the lost fire. But with the first outburst of 
music, this darkness was everywhere pierced by a 
light which was a revelation of happiness. 

After the solos, everybody rose to join in a 
chorus, with Mr. Wood as conductor; not a hack- 
neyed, commonplace thing, but a splendid ensem- 
ble, demanding long and skilful preparation. As I 
listened I observed attentively the sight before me, 
and I saw that the singers were entirely absorbed 
in their song. They revelled in the harmony, as 
though it were light. Now they saw ! 

When they had finished singing, we spoke to 
them, and it is a very peculiar experience for a man 
accustomed to express himself with the aid of ges- 
ture and facial play, to address an audience for 



A LESSON FROM THE BLIND 209 

whom nothing of his discourse exists at all except 
what can be heard; he must seek to put all that he 
feels into the one means of expression to which he 
finds himself reduced. 

But I had yet to learn, in this place and during 
this same hour, that there are cases of much greater 
isolation than that of the blind. While the music was 
going on, I had already noticed in the front row 
a very little boy who remained seated when the 
others rose, and seemed to have no part in anything 
— ^neither the addresses and stories nor the music; 
his attitude was that of a being overwhelmed by 
some superhuman evil. Mr. Wanamaker, whom I had 
seen sit down by the child a moment and caress him, 
explained to me that the poor little fellow was not 
only blind but a deaf-mute as well ; so all that was 
happening was hidden from him. He seemed the 
prisoner of a sort of Fatality — like the mute fig- 
ures one finds in the dramas of JEschylus, as though 
witnessing to some tremendous and unvoiced dis- 
aster. 

This pitiful little being, bowed under his host of 
infirmities, wrung my heart. Any outcry was to him 
nothing at all; every visible sign would be power- 
less before him. So while the others were speaking. 



210 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AIVIERICA 

I sat down beside him, and let him feel, very gently, 
that some one was there. He crept nearer, nestling 
against me, and I drew his head to my heart, ran 
my hands through his hair, and stroked his cheeks. 
His sad face began to clear; it was evident that 
there in his dark cell, shut in by the triple wall of 
blindness, deafness and dumbness, the child was 
taking interest in my visit. Then an idea entered 
my head. What if I should tell him a story ! I took 
his hands, and grasped first his thumb, and then 
the fingers, one by one, raising them, lowering them, 
bending them together, tapping them, blowing on 
them, treating them as piano keys to be played on, 
and resorting to a series of manipulations that 
finally made my poor little youngster laugh out- 
right. And as seeing children, at the end of one 
story ask for another, so he stretched out his hands 
for me to begin again to play with them, and make 
a different story for him. We had a long conversa- 
tion in this improvised Volapiik, and certainly we 
parted friends. 

Great misfortunes are great mysteries ; I counsel 
no one to try to explain them, for some aspect of 
their immensity always escapes us. But misfortune 
says to us: " Be kind! " In presence of the defects 



A LESSON FROM THE BLIND 211 

and deficiencies of life, as we see them in these 

poor cramped and mutilated existences, the man 

who does not feel an ardent desire to contribute 

toward paying the enormous debt of misfortime, is 

not a man. If we understood the speech of wounded 

and suffering humanity, we should turn from our 

evil ways, and the divine pity we should feel would 

cleanse us from all impurity. The only right and 

humane conclusion to draw from the most fearful 

calamities, is always the same; humanity, not yet 

out of its darkness or twilights, has half discerned 

it; the Gospel taught no other. What shall we 

do, in the face of these mountains of suffering? 

We must love. 

I left Overbrook with two images in my heart, 

one of the little boy, deaf, dumb, and blind; the 

other of the great messenger of inexhaustible Pity, 

who said : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and 

are heavy laden." To what child crowned with 

golden curls and fresh delights, would He have said 

with more sweetness than to this poor little crushed 

being: " Suffer the little children to come unto 

me. 

***** 

Two hours later, by one of those coincidences that 



212 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

strike the mind as the flint does the rock^ I found 
myself in Arch Street, Philadelphia, before more 
than a thousand children that the Friends had 
brought together to hear me. In anticipation of the 
event, I had prepared an address, but to give it at 
that moment would have been impossible. I left it 
in the depths of my pocket, and, very simply, the 
method of the Friends imposed itself upon me: — 
Speak as your heart moves you; proclaim to others 
what the Spirit says to you in secret. 

Had I not here before me the most precious of 
all the city's treasure } The body of the great house, 
the galleries, and every niche and corner were liter- 
ally overflowing with children — sturdy and smiling 
boys, charming little girls. What a fund of life and 
hope ! What a sowing of energy ! I had come out of 
night into the day. Oh, how the light of these great 
open eyes — children's eyes, whose beauty neither 
the smile of the flowers nor the starlight equals — 
how all this wealth of light recalled the pitiful 
darkness I had just left! Simply and directly I 
told them of what was oppressing me, thinking 
that this hard lesson from life would be good for 
them. 

" You see here," I said, " a man who has just 



A LESSON FllOM THE BLIND 213 

come from visiting a crowd of blind children. They 
did not see him. Neither the roses in their garden, 
nor the golden shimmer of autumn forests, nor the 
blue of the sky, nor their mother's smile, exists 
for them. If every day an eye were loaned them 
for an hour, they would use it so well, that they 
would lay up a store of pictures for the hours of 
darkness. 

All of you here have eyes the whole day long; 
what do you do with them } Do you even know how 
you should use them? Do you know how to look at 
things with them ? The world is an open book under 
your eyes; do you read in it? What does the ant 
say to you, as it runs about in the sunshine among 
the glistening grains of sand ? What does the silvery 
moonlight say, falling at night on your pillow be- 
fore you close your eyes to sleep? Do you under- 
stand the stories written in people's faces? Have 
your eyes learned to smile and to console those who 
weep? 

Do your eyes look straight into other people's 
eyes? Can people see your thoughts in them, as 
they see the golden pebbles at the bottom of a crys- 
tal spring, or do you drop them, ashamed of the 
thoughts they might reveal? Have you a coward's 



214 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

eyes, afraid in danger, or are they able to face it, 
unflinching and undisturbed? " 

So it was that by a simple effect of human soli- 
darity, some blind children had furnished food for 
thought to children who could see. 



A 



XXXIV 

HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 

ME RICA does an enormous amount of 
building, but of all that she builds I 
prefer the suburban houses of wood, 
with their graceful outlines and their infinite 
variety. These are the American homes; they are 
to be found within the reach of all purses, and 
their number is past calculation. 

In spite of the herculean difficulties that the 
growth of monster cities puts in the way, the city 
folk make a desperate struggle for private homes. 
Everywhere, even in the most populous centres, as 
soon as you get outside of certain districts the roofs 
begin to lower, and the great apartment-houses are 
replaced by dwellings designed for not more than 
two families, while interminable streets are filled 
with houses almost identical, standing wing to wing, 
that have been built for individual homes. 

Beyond the region of these streets where the 

houses press upon one another like the cells of a 

hive, comes the open region of detached homes sur- 

215 



216 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

rounded by lawns and trees. To enter here, you go 
up a flight of five or six steps, so that there are 
lighted basements, and in them are the kitchen, the 
heating apparatus, and the cellar. The ground floor 
is encircled by a covered veranda, overgrown and 
beautified by ivy, roses, clematis, or other climbing 
plants, that is popularly called " the porch," and in 
summer is the chosen spot of the domicile. There 
is no attractive and comfortable guise that these 
*' porches " do not assume, as is true with regard to 
the whole exterior of the houses, which resemble 
one another little, however, though a certain cachet 
marks them all. At first sight the American dwell- 
ing is distinguished from ours by less of symmetry 
and more of variety. 

Upon penetrating the interior, you find all the 
rooms of the ground floor opening into a hall, from 
which the staircase mounts. The doors are a negli- 
gible feature, and often wanting altogether. On this 
floor are one or two reception-rooms, usually very 
simple, a library, and a dining-room. In the living- 
rooms, besides rocking-chairs and other comfort- 
able seats, there are window-seats running around 
the bay-windows, and you feel yourself drawn to- 
ward the bright and cozy corners they make. On 



HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 217 

the walls are numbers of engravings, many of them 
representing the monuments of Europe or pictures 
by the great masters. Mounting again, you find 
sleeping-rooms and bath-rooms. The sleeping-rooms 
are distinguished by the absence of carpets and 
hangings, carpets being the exception, and mattings 
or rugs the rule. The beds have no curtains, and 
the windows, which are large, have blinds or roller 
shades, with dainty muslin curtains in place of the 
heavy hangings we use in France. Often a fine wire 
gauze is so arranged as to allow the window to be 
opened without risk of mosquitoes entering; for 
of flies, and mosquitoes, and all winged and hum- 
ming and whirring insects, America has a prodigi- 
ous quantity. On beautiful summer evenings, count- 
less beetles fly about, and the song of the crickets 
is truly meridional. 

An American sleeping-room is designed with the 
special purpose of avoiding dust and close air, and 
once you have learned how to manage the windows 
and their fastenings, you can regulate the ventila- 
tion at will. There are few gimcracks about, if any, 
and all the surfaces are smooth and easily dusted. 
The heating arrangements of these houses are per- 
fect ; but in general, throughout the country, homes, 



218 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

schools, public halls_, railway trains — -all are heated 
too much. 

The beds are luxurious. It seems to me that I 
slept in the same one all the time I was in America, 
so alike are they in appearance and comfort. The 
bedsteads are usually of iron or brass, and often 
elegant in shape. The spring mattress has disap- 
peared, and is advantageously replaced by woven 
wire " springs," such as our new schools and hospi- 
tals are beginning to use, and hair or felt mattresses 
of the finest quality; America not only knows how 
to work, she also knows how to provide for rest and 
cultivate the science of sleep. Look at the bill- 
boards, open the magazines at the advertising sec- 
tions, which occupy a good half of them, and you 
will see all sorts of mattresses constructed with the 
greatest ingenuity — mattresses in two or three 
pieces; mattresses of five or six layers superim- 
posed, and possessing the exact proportion of elas- 
ticity to firmness that makes a good bed. For 
workers, good sleep is so important, that too much 
attention cannot be given to the place where they 
rest their heads wearied by thought, and their limbs 
wearied by motion. 

Every American home has a bath-room, and 



HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 219 

many of them have more than one ; indeed, the bath- 
room, epitome of all the comforts of the toilet, is 
a national institution. Among those who know the 
influence of the care of the skin upon health, the 
nervous system, the circulation of the blood, and all 
the organic functions of the body, the luxury of the 
bath-room ought to be counted one of the necessi- 
ties of life. It is at once so hygienic and so agree- 
able, that it could not be too highly praised or rec- 
ommended. The bath-room is certainly one source 
of the blooming appearance of hosts of Americans, 
and care of the person is a matter of universal con- 
cern. Nowhere else are so many kinds of soaps, 
powders, and creams, recommended and used, and 
nothing is more amusing than to read the adver- 
tisements of these articles, or to watch a first-rate 
barber at his work; when this capillary artist has 
shaved his client, he proceeds to manipulate the 
face so skilfully and conscientiously that you would 
say you were witnessing an embalmment ! It is im- 
possible to look out of a train window anywhere 
without seeing the life-size portrait of the inventor 
of a certain talcum powder, and judging by the 
fabulous sum of money such an amount of adver- 
tising suggests, you may calculate the extent of the 



220 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

sales. " How shall we have red cheeks? " is a ques- 
tion replied to by numerous ingenious recipes. Such 
information as this will perhaps amuse certain of 
my countrywomen who drink vinegar in order to 
make themselves pale; but it is not possible to take 
too good care of our health and strength. We have 
enough colourless faces^ and aesthetics apart^ I think 
I make no ill wish for the young people of my 
native land, when I ask for them a fresh colour and 
rosy cheeks. 

Nothing interests me more than the indoor life of 
the home and housework, so wherever I went I 
asked to visit kitchens. The kitchen is a social in- 
stitution of the first rank; the future of nations is 
simmering there, and when women no longer in- 
terest themselves in cookery, the end of the world 
will have come. People had told me (what won't 
they tell you !) that American women were frivo- 
lous, that their husbands idolised them and treated 
them like dolls, toiling all day to provide them with 
beautiful clothes and insure them a life of idleness. 
A serious gentleman, monocle in eye, had also told 
me that there is no family life in America, that 
everybody lives in boarding-houses ; so he had read 
in a book on the country. In order to ascertain the 



HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 221 

truth for myself, I must needs be received as a 
friend, in private houses, and this was my good 
fortune during almost the entire visit. My old- 
time and ardent conviction in favor of family life 
also made it a duty to interest myself in the homes 
that offered me their kind hospitality. So we talked 
of everything pertaining to them, including kitchen 
affairs, and it was with pleasure that the ladies 
made me acquainted with their culinary laborato- 
ries, so important in the household economy, and 
explained to me the part they played in them. One 
day, in company with Dr. McCook, the learned 
scholar, and a writer of admirable books on ants and 
spiders, I made irruption into the kitchen at a mo- 
ment when all the feminine portion of the house- 
hold was busy making pickles and jam! I was per- 
mitted to taste of these products, and carried some 
precious recipes away with me. Meanwhile the Doc- 
tor had maliciously photographed me in the midst 
of pots and pans, lending an attentive ear to culi- 
nary dogma. 

The fact is, that the very great majority of 
American women look after their homes with care 
and love. It is more and more difficult to get serv- 
ants, so that it is necessary to be well informed 



222 ]MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

one's self, and ready to put one's hands-into the 
dough. And this is what these ladies know how to 
do with the best grace in the world. I always found 
a hearty echo wherever I treated these subjects in 
public — subjects of minor importance in the eyes of 
the superficial only. 

V The American woman receives a different educa- 
tion from ours, an education suited from childhood 
to a greater share of freedom, and many more ca- 
reers are open to her than to Frenchwomen. It is 
true that she hasn't the political franchise as yet, 
but she takes so large a part in life, and fills so 
many offices, that she has long ago formed the habit 
of being a somebody and her own mistress. So the 
number of women who do not look forward to mar- 
riage as the determination of their destiny, is more 
considerable than among us. It is also easier to find 
here than in the old world, women who are such 
pronounced feminists as to look upon themselves as 
the rivals and adversaries of men, rather than their 
allies. But these exceptions confirm the rule; and 
the rule is that American women are graciously and 
truly womanly. Perhaps in the normal and usual 
marriage, the women are wives above all, mothers 
afterward; while with us, as soon as there are chil- 



HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 223 

dreiij maternity becomes the stronger tie, and par- 
ents put their children first in their affections. But 
it is to the children's interest not to hold the flrgt 
place, and to inspire them with a too high idea 
of themselves compromises their future. Is it not 
logical and salutary for the parents to put affection 
for each other first, and affection for their children 
second } It is the natural order, and that is never to 
be reversed with impunity. 

***** 
The spirit of a home is best shown in its manner 
of exercising hospitality. To be kind to our own 
flesh and blood is an excellent thing, but true kind- 
ness always reaches beyond the bounds of our per- 
sonal life and the limits of our family relationships. 
It is warm and expansive. I find great pleasure in 
giving expression here to all the cherished joy and 
satisfaction of heart that came to me in these Amer- 
ican homes into which I entered for the first time. 
Hospitality had manifested itself in advance by the 
cordiality of the invitations, and I had formed a 
resolution to accept in each city the first that was 
offered me. This plan greatly facilitated matters, 
and permitted me, without the embarrassment of a 
choice, to be the guest of homes the most varied 



224 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

from the standpoint of ideas, social station and oc- 
cupations represented. But the cordiality was every- 
where the same. 

To begin with, when we alighted from the train, 
there was always our cordial host waiting to dis- 
cover us among the crowd, and conduct us to his 
home. Arrived there, we would find the whole fam- 
ily in array to meet us, the little girls in gala dress 
with knots of ribbon in their hair, the older mem- 
bers of the household with hands outstretched to 
greet us. There was never any ice to break. And 
when we found ourselves at table and I looked 
around at all the faces, old and young together, 
the same question invariably rose in my mind: — 
"Where have I seen these people before?" They 
appeared to me so familiar, that I seemed not to be 
seeing them for the first time, but to be m.eeting 
them once more after a separation. And I recalled 
the kind letters that had reached me in France 
months earlier, in which people unknown to me had 
said, " You are not coming among strangers, but 
among brothers." From Washington to Chicago, 
from Boston to Indianapolis, the greater the change, 
the more was this true. And yet to practise hospi- 
tality under the circumstances was no sinecure. It 



HOMES AND HOSPITALITY 225 

meant open house to a crowd of callers and jour- 
nalists, as well as a heavy correspondence and fre- 
quent interruptions from the telephone.* All these 
inconveniences, great and small, were met with the 
utmost cheerfulness, and moreover, each host con- 
trived to entertain in his home those friends whom I 
might have pleasure or interest in meeting. 

This hospitality reminded me of all the beautiful 
things we read of the hospitality of the East, and of 
the tents of Abraham; I have never experienced 
the brotherhood of man under a more gracious 
guise. Esteeming sympathy and affection above all 
else that a man may receive from his fellows or give 
to them, I felt my measure full and running over 
with this which I hold most precious in the world, as 
I circulated about in this great country, like a drop 
of blood in the heart. 

How many young men and women who had read 
my books, came to me as to an elder brother! And 
we talked together of the things that do not pass 
away, that nourish the soul and strengthen man's 
hope. 

* I am thinking especially of the homes in which I passed 
whole weeks, as that of Miss Louise Sullivan in New York, 
C. F. Dole in Boston, and Jenkin Lloyd Jones in Chicago. 



226 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

Often have I toiled and struggled in behalf of 
the ideas I defend, in behalf of the right to give 
nevr form to old truth; but what is this toil, which 
biassed minds force upon us, in comparison with the 
riches of these recompenses of the heart! I have 
long enjoyed them in my own country, from the 
great sweetness of ties with fellow-citizens com- 
ing from all the horizons of thought; now I was 
experiencing the same emotions heightened, on the 
other side of the sea, in the midst of all that Amer- 
ica considers most catholic, most human, and most 
evangelical in the unconfined sense of this splendid 

term. 

* * * * * 

All these joys that I experienced, remain with 
me to-day in a wealth of remembrance, and it gives 
me a deep satisfaction to make a record here of 
hours that never can be forgotten. Perhaps, too, 
the friends across the sea will find in these lines a 
token from the heart, that the limits of human possi- 
bilities prevent me from sending them individually. 



XXXV 

THE AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT 

I SHALL define it by a single word: it is youth- 
ful. Not that America has escaped all our 
tendencies to reversion, not but what she has 
certain defects characteristic of age and destructive 
of joy and strength; but she has taken a bath in a 
fountain of youth, provided by the very conditions 
of her history, and by that unprecedented develop- 
ment of hers which is a perpetual appeal to spon- 
taneity and energy. 

The feelings of youth are acute, and manifest- 
ed with sincerity, and these same conditions are 
quickly perceived when one comes into close contact 
with the citizens of the United States. If they are 
in sympathy with you, it does not take them long to 
show it; if you offend them, they say so frankly. 

Such plain-dealing is not only a safeguard for 
society, it is a source of security and good feeling 
in all the relations of life. How greatly I prefer 

it to manners more distinguished in appearance and 

227 



228 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

more pleasing, but often without sincerity or real 
kindness. 

Practical joking, sarcasm, and a whole train of 
impulses arising out of what is unkind, negative, 
and caustic in man, are comparatively rare; a sense 
of humour relegates them to the background, and 
replaces them to advantage. Mockery and the satiri- 
cal spirit that lives brilliantly upon booty snatched 
openly from the resources and reputation of its 
neighbours, play no prominent role in the literature, 
the journalism, or the daily life of America. When 
Americans are malicious, they are frankly and bru- 
tally so. 

Like youth, again, they are full of hope and 
prompt initiative; but thc}'^ join to these buoyant 
and impulsive qualities a stock of endurance and 
patient wisdom. Their enthusiasms have to-mor- 
rows ; it is even rather an affectation of theirs to put 
through anything they have once seriously under- 
taken, except, of course, when they are convinced 
of being in the wrong. To have blundered is not 
to their mind a reason for blundering still, nor does 
one's honour demand that he persist in error once 
it has been pointed out to him. 

The Americans are proud of their country, and 



AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT 229 

without dissimulation; they do not drop their eyes 
at compliments. One of the first questions they put 
to a newly arrived visitor is : " How do you like 
America ? " and they ask it as though you were the 
first foreigner ever to have landed on their shores, 
and listen to your reply with the attention and grav- 
ity of men who have never before heard what you 
say. Are not these noteworthy signs of a juvenile 
temperament, exuberant and confiding, responsive 
equally to praise and blame .^ It is an unalloyed 
pleasure to be able to say to men possessed of such 
open-heartedness, all the good things you think of 
their country and institutions. But if, as is inev- 
itable, you voice a criticism, make a reservation, 
sound a warning, then the most remarkable trait of 
this temperament appears. Your words are listened 
to with a conscientiousness and a sincerity full of 
lessons for us Frenchmen. What I shall call " the 
better America," is certainly animated by the most 
ardent desire to recognise the national faults and 
imperfections, in order to set about their correction. 
I have rarely seen such manifest pride united with 
such true humility. To me the modest man is not 
he who repels you with protesting gestures, and 
screens his face when you offer him merited praise ; 



230 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

but he who accepts the jDraise^ and also knows how 
to take blame. 

In this sketch of the American temperament^ the 
element of compassion must not be forgotten — that 
pity of the strong for the weak which presents 
such a beautiful contrast to aggressiveness. I could 
only glance rapidly at the works of mercy and asy- 
lums for suffering and old age ; but even in passing 
one catches the spirit of active and intelligent ten- 
derness which breathes through these abodes of ill- 
ness and weakness. The hands of these people are 
not only creative of prodigies of industrial genius, 
they are also compassionate to the wounded and the 
defeated. And their pity extends even to animals; 
during all my travels in America, I did not once see 
a horse ill-treated. 

Another sign of youth in the Americans, is the 
fact that they are fond of simple diversions. Youth 
does not require an expensive equipment or elab- 
orate preparations in order to be gay. Hunger is the 
best sauce, and a certain personal capacity for being 
happy is the best condition for happiness. I accu- 
mulated a quantity of proofs of this truth in the 
United States. The searchers after artificial dis- 
tractions might think the American people had little 



AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT 231 

amusement, for to their minds it is a sorry country 
in which they do not find their accustomed round 
of pleasures ; but the countries most to be envied are 
those which get their amusement without the aid 
of these sophisticated joys so quickly perishable. 
America takes her diversion in open-air sports and 
in the thousand unexpected fruits of a good-hu- 
mour that a busy life induces and keeps constant. 
People of all ages are very fond of what they call 
" fun," which is the endless series of amusing sit- 
uations that are seen by the quick minds of kindly, 
busy, and light-hearted men, in the daily events of 
life, and the countless little jokes they make out of 
the material thus come to hand — jokes that often 
entertain for whole days a family or even a town. 
America has a day set apart for fun, when those 
high spirits that are the inventors of wholesome 
merriment and mirth-provoking pranks, receive the 
homage of a whole responsive people. At this time of 
Hallowe'en I was in Minneapolis. After my evening 
lecture, which had been given in a large church, the 
Pastor said to me : " There is a gathering of young 
people in a room up-stairs ; would that interest you ? 
We ought to warn you that it is an extremely merry 
crowd." Friend that I am of youth and gaiety, I 



232 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

did not need a second invitation, and a long and 
laborious day had disposed me for just such an 
end of the evening. 

We came out into the brilliancy of a festival at 
its very height. So it seemed that while the lecture 
was going on below, up under the eaves of this 
church these young people were at their sports, and 
it had not entered any one's mind that there was in- 
congruity in it. Everybody was in costume, and on 
what was evidently a temporary stage, some of the 
merry-makers were acting little pieces and singing, 
while the audience took an active part by joining 
in the choruses. It was all very jolly, and perfectly 
proper. Those who monotonously grind out vulgar 
plays and equivocal songs, have no idea of the in- 
exhaustible riches in the gamut of human gaiety. 
The source of true joy is as pure as heaven and as 
exhaustless as the sea. 

What a good hour we passed under the gables 
of that church ! I see myself yet, perched on a table, 
a sort of improvised platform, from which the joy- 
ous movement in the room could be viewed at ease. 
And looking out upon these young men and women, 
and boys and girls of ten or a dozen years, enjoy- 
ing all this together, like members of one great 



AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT 233 

family, you felt sure that their pleasure was gen- 
uine. At the same moment, the same kind of festivi- 
ties were going on, but with countless variations, 
throughout the vast territory of the Republic. Out- 
side most of the houses we passed on our way 
home, were lighted jack-o'-lanterns, the face of 
each of them a little more comical than the one 
before it. 

The Americans also have " Thanksgiving," a re- 
ligious day, at once a public and a family celebra- 
tion. The idea of the day is an accounting of the 
benefits of the past year, and an appeal to steadi- 
ness of purpose and to gratitude. The churches are 
crowded, and the spirit of the nation is strengthened 
and purified at its source by prayer and brotherly 
communion. This is the serious side of the medal; 
now for the merry side. 

In the homes the family groups assemble, and 
the dinner of the day is marked by a special open- 
heartedness. A simpler and old-time touch is given 
it, by assigning to the head of the family parts of 
the service that are usually left to the servants. 
Standing, he carves the enormous turkey and the 
traditional sucking-pig. Custom demands singing 
during the meal, and sometimes, to preserve the 



234 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

measure, lie who carves stojDS to beat time with his 
knife. 

May we be permitted an anecdote concerning 
" The Simple Life " and Thanksgiving ? This being 
a day of mirth and festivity, commodities have a 
tendency to rise in price, the turkey especially 
mounting sometimes beyond what is reasonable. A 
humourous paper made use of this fact to bring a 
disciple of the simple life into conflict with the 
tradesmen. The caricatures show him going from 
one market to another; and after each ineffectual 
effort to make a bargain for a turkey, a pig, or some 
other commodity, he exclaims: " After all, one can 
get on without that ! " In the end he celebrates his 
Thanksgiving with a sandwich. 



XXXVI 

SYMPATHIES WITH FRANCE 

AMERICA likes France, and a Frenchman 
travelling in the United States easily 
gathers proofs of this sympathy. I my- 
self encountered numerous evidences of it. In the 
first place, Lafayette is not forgotten, but the fra- 
ternity in arms now more than a century gone by, 
and the Frenchmen who set out enthusiastically to 
help America regain her freedom, are still recalled 
with emotion. 

I had discovered this before leaving Paris, and 
under significant circumstances. Walking in the 
Reuilly quarter one day, I ran upon a group of 
Americans, who peremptorily asked of me: " Where 
is the heart of Lafayette.^ " I took good care not 
to betray the fact that I didn't know; these men 
from across the sea should give me a lesson in his- 
tory. So I said to them, " Pardon me, I will tell you 
in a moment," and disappeared into one of the con- 
vents of the rue de Reuilly. After a lot of questions 

235 



236 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

put to the inmates — who proved to be no better 
informed than I — some one came forward who said 
that the tomb of Lafayette is in the cemetery of 
the Picpus Fathers, in the rue de Picpus ; that his 
heart is not, as sometimes supposed, in an urn by 
itself, but that it was left in its natural place. I 
communicated this information to the tourists, who 
were patiently waiting for me in the street, and 
we went our ways, they quite content, I somewhat 
pensive. How many Frenchmen know this tomb? 
In the case of Americans, people ordinarily char- 
acterised as eminently practical and utilitarian, such 
a pilgrimage seemed to me very touching, and I 
have since become convinced that the group of men 
I met in the rue de Reuilly, did not make an 
honourable exception, as it were, to a general rule, 
but was representative of the average feeling in 
America. 

Not only is Lafayette still remembered, but no 
occasion is lost to emphasise the goodwill felt to- 
ward the sister Republic. How many times were 
the platforms from which I spoke, trimmed with 
French and American colors ! and at table, expres- 
sive of a charming delicacy of sentiment, French 
flags of lilliputian dimensions often decorated the 



SYMPATHIES WITH FRANCE 237 

corsages of the women and the buttonholes of the 
men. 

Yet in spite of this lively sympathy, we are too 
little understood on the other side of the Atlantic. 
True, there are many Americans who travel yearly 
on the Continent, and who delight to stay in Paris 
or on the Riviera; but an infinitely greater number 
never leave their native land. Over this tremendous 
territory of the United States is spread a popula- 
tion of eighty millions, the very great majority of 
whom have never seen Europe, and speak only the 
English language. Thus it happens that America 
is really little acquainted with us, and badly ac- 
quainted. Although looked upon with favour, and 
the recipients of a traditional goodwill, yet we do 
not enjoy a very flattering reputation in the country. 
Seen from a distance, our politics often appear ca- 
pricious, unstable, and partisan; the inherited diffi- 
culties through which we are trying to find the 
way of the future, are not sufficiently well under- 
stood abroad. 

And our morality is the object of strange pre- 
conceptions. By our exported literature, we are 
judged to be a people without morals or family life; 
all France is viewed through the particular medium 



238 IVIY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

of novels that skirt the perilous^ and establishments 
of the Paris boulevards which are frequented much 
more by foreigners than by Frenchmen. 

If, then_, in spite of this summary and unfavour- 
able acquaintance, our friends of the United States 
have such a store of goodwill for us, what would 
be the case if they knew us better? For in truth 
we are among those people who improve upon ac- 
quaintance — be it said in all seriousness. 

Meanwhile many Americans, the women espe- 
cially, are striving to acquire the French language, 
though with varying results. For instance, once 
when at the request of a teacher I addressed in 
French his advanced class of young ladies, I soon 
perceived that the expression of their faces did not 
accord with the sense of my words. So I said to 
them without ceremony: "You certainly are not 
following me." It was true; they weren't, and I was 
obliged to continue in English. 

Elsewhere I was more fortunate. Whole audi- 
ences of young women followed a lecture in French 
understandingly, or manifested the greatest deliglit 
in listening to stories in our language. At Vassar 
College, for instance, I told stories a whole evening 
long to a crowd of charming young people grouped 



SYMPATHIES WITH FRANCE 239 

around me^ and I can yet hear them say: " One 
more ! " Most of these girls not only expressed 
themselves well in French, but had also an acquaint- 
ance with French literature by no means to be 
despised. They were pupils of M. Charlemagne 
Bracq, our distinguished fellow-countryman, one of 
the men who labour most to extend the knowledge 
of our language in the United States, and one who 
has founded a number of libraries in which he en- 
deavours to collect the works of our best authors. 
Thanks to the influence of the Alliance Frangaise, 
there are in many cities circles for the cultivation 
of French, and we often met their members, women 
especially, who were assiduously pursuing the study 
of the language. 

French professors in considerably large num- 
bers, offer private lessons throughout the country, 
but the greater part of them are English, Ameri- 
cans, Germans or Russians. We had the pleasure, 
however, of encountering some of our own country- 
men who had found the teaching of French in the 
United States a very satisfactory career. Among the 
French books best liked by young Americans are 
the romances of Erckmann-Chatrian. 

The people of the country who are interested in 



240 IMY IiMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

the progress of ideas in France, are almost all ac- 
quainted with the name of Sabatier, but for them, 
there is only one Sabatier. In reality, we have three 
of them: Armand, professor of biology at Mont- 
pellier ; Paul, author of the " Life of Saint Francis 
of Assisi," and Auguste, author of " The Philosophy 
of Religion," and " Religions of Authority." These 
three men and their names give rise to amusing 
complications. Accompanying a magazine article on 
Auguste Sabatier, I saw the portrait of Paul Sa- 
batier. As another instance, people are moved to 
transports of admiration over the wide perspective 
of this Sabatier, who is a master of natural science 
and the philosophy of religion, and a historian to 
boot! 

After all, at this distance, a confusion of names 
is easily pardonable. We have such experiences in 
France, when we undertake to talk about promi- 
nent men of other nations. Then let us rather con- 
gratulate ourselves, that our triple Sabatier en- 
joys such a reputation in the United States. 

At Albany, two ladies of distinction, attached to 
the State Department of Instruction, who were my 
hostesses, said to me, with a quizzical smile: " We 
are going to present to you a compatriot of yours 



SYMPATHIES WITH FRANCE 241 

who teaches us to pronounce French." Thereupon 
they brought out a box, with the information that 
here was their little Frenchman. It was in fact 
a phonograph, with registers of current conversa- 
tions; and when the ladies would accustom their 
ears to a correct French pronunciation, they make 
ready their " little Frenchman," who forthwith be- 
gins to talk with great volubility. I have since 
learned from the newspapers, that these Albany 
ladies were by no means exceptional in their method 
of study by phonograph, but that it is very widely 
followed. 



XXXVII 

AN AMUSING LITTLE BLUNDER 

I AM going to tell you the story of two men 
who played a sort of hide-and-seek game 
without finding each other : the two men were 
General Miller and myself. 

General Miller is an Alsatian, what is more, he 
is from OberhofFen, near Bischwiller, country of 
hop-vines, an immense plain having the Vosges on 
one horizon, and on the other the sombre barrier of 
the Black Forest, with the silvery ribbon of the 
Rhine along its edge. Thus General Miller is my 
fellow-countryman, and after reading my book, he 
made several attempts to find me in Paris, but was 
always unsuccessful. When my trip to America was 
resolved upon, we began an exchange of letters, 
in the course of which it was agreed that General 
Miller should show me something of his country, 
and it seemed that at last we were to meet. 

The General lives in Franklin, where he has 
large business interests and takes an active part in 

educational matters, both secular and religious; it 

242 



AMUSING LITTLE BLUNDER 243 

happens, however, that there are a number of towns 
in the United States named Franklin, a fact of 
which I had neglected to inform myself; one of 
them is in Pennsylvania — the right one; another 
is in Indiana. 

Coming, in the course of my tour, to Indianap- 
olis, where I spent two nights, I asked my host if he 
knew General Miller of Franklin. He said that 
he did, that Franklin was only a few miles distant 
and might be reached by trolley. The General was 
at once called up over the telephone, we talked to- 
gether, and he accepted an invitation to luncheon 
for the following day. 

We met at the appointed hour. He talked of my 
book, I talked of OberhofFen and Bischwiller, of 
Alsace and of the old pastor who had been his 
teacher and was the grandfather of my wife. Dur- 
ing this discourse, which moved the Alsatian in me 
with all the charms of memory, it seemed to me 
that General Miller's expression became more and 
more peculiar. I halted and brought the matter to an 
issue. " You certainly are. General, an Alsatian 
like myself, a native of Oberhoffen.^ " I demanded. 

" No, I am a stranger to Oberhoffen and Alsace 
alike!" 



244 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

" Then it is all the more certain that you do not 
know old Pastor Heldt? " 

" I never before heard his name." 

" Why, then, you aren't General Miller at all." 

" Indeed I am." 

" General Miller of Franklin ? " 

" General Miller of Franklin." 

" How strange ! In what wars were you a com- 
mander? " 

" I never was a commander in any war. I was 
for a long time attorney-general, and from that 
fact, people have given me the title of General." 

There was nothing to do but to laugh over the 
blunder, and we lunched together in the best of 
spirits. 

All this time, the veritable General Miller was 
asking himself what had become of his absent- 
minded compatriot. Driven with work every passing 
day, finding never a quiet hour for introducing a 
bit of order into a correspondence already in hope- 
less confusion, I arrived at the end of November 
without making a sign to the General, and then the 
accumulation of engagements for the few hours 
left made life so intense, that any thought of an 
escape to Franklin became chimeric. 



AMUSING LITTLE BLUNDER 245 

The day of my departure had come^ and I was 
already on board the Savoie, when, at the last mo- 
ment, a man, affable and smiling, presented him- 
self as General Miller. This time it was really he ; 
he had learned from the newspapers when I was 
sailing, and had come without delay to say " how 
do you do ? " and " good-bye " in the same breath, 
an example, I take it, of thorough good nature. We 
had a moment of fun over my geographical blun- 
ders, and I am taking the first opportunity to ac- 
knowledge them. 



XXXVIII 

IN THE CHICAGO STOCK-YARDS 

I WAS going to Chicago^ but I was not going 
to the stock-yards; that was an understand- 
ing I made with myself long in advance. 
After one of my lectures in that city, a portly man 
with a massive head covered with white hair, and a 
kindly face, presented himself to me. He spoke 
English and German, manifested a lively sympathy 
with my ideas, and expressed the desire of meeting 
me again, when, he said, he should like to show me 
something of the city, including his own industry. 
As I am interested in the different industries, in an 
amateur way, to be sure, but very seriously, it has 
always been a great pleasure to me to visit manu- 
factories in company with men qualified to explain 
their processes, and I gladly accepted the invita- 
tion, already picturing myself among the looms of a 
great mill, or the blast furnaces of some smelting 
establishment. 

Precisely at the appointed hour, my guide ar- 
rived in his carriage; he himself drove, and he 

246 



THE CHICAGO STOCK-YARDS 247 

took me straight to the stock-yards, for his name 
was Nelson Morris, and he was proprietor of one of 
the oldest and largest establishments concerned in 
this colossal business. 

As we drove along, he told me the story of his 
life. Son of a poor German Jew, proscribed in 1848 
for his republican ideas, he had reached America 
with very modest savings that he had accumulated 
under great difficulties. He began by peddling meat 
from a basket, when Chicago was as yet only a 
small town, and his basket grew with the city, until 
it now held within its enormous sides the products 
of ten thousand head of cattle a day. 

The avenues of Chicago are long, and people 
driving through them may talk at their ease; there 
was time for me to learn that Mr. Morris bore in his 
heart the great grief of a loss. At a word we under- 
stood each other, and my sympathy was quickly and 
deeply aroused for this stranger, speaking of dis- 
tress of soul so well known to me. And in his case, 
no hope accompanied it: he was of the number of 
those who have no outlook upon the invisible, be- 
lieving that we can count upon nothing but what 
are commonly called positive realities. He spoke of 
his home. " It is just as we made it when we mar- 



248 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

ried, my wife and I, and when we were in modest 
circumstances. And we shall not change it: all my 
memories are there." This simplicity I heartily 
approved. 

We arrived at our destination^ where the attention 
is first attracted by the immense yards into which 
the stock is incessantly pouring from all parts of the 
country. In passages between these yards, men on 
horseback_, prospective buyers, move about freely, 
that they may better see the quality of the stock. 
From here the animals go up inclined plains to 
the fatal spot where they are to be sacrificed. 

I had a vision of a torrent of beings swept on to 
death. From the vast plains of the west, where 
they had lived their peaceful life, countless herds, 
like so many brooklets that are to come together 
into a great river, were making their way toward 
the same point, to end there in a cataract of blood, 
another Niagara, that should distribute health, 
strength, and life to cities far and wide; all these 
myriads of dumb beasts must die in order that we 
might live. 

And I mused upon all that we humans cost, upon 
all that goes into that mysterious matrix out of 
which humanity springs. Are we worth so much 



THE CHICAGO STOCK-YARDS 249 

sacrifice ? I wondered ; do we lead such lives that we 
may be said to render an equivalent for what is 
expended in our behalf? All the interesting things 
I might have observed in the vast area about which 
we were circulating, faded out before this insistent 
question that had risen to disturb my mind. Cer- 
tainly many details must have escaped me, and I 
was entirely oblivious to the presents Mr. Morris 
made me all along our progress among canned and 
salted and smoked meats; but in fact, when I had 
left him, I made the discovery that my pockets 
were crammed with sausages. 

The street through which I was passing was full 
of newsboys crying their papers, and I made a great 
number of friends among them, at the cost of a sau- 
sage apiece. I could only regret that my pockets 
had not been more numerous and more capacious. 



XXXIX 

DEAN, MY KEEPER 

WHO is Dean? Dean is the servant at- 
tached to the person of Mr. John 
Wanamaker. He has more than once 
made the tour of the world, and can express him- 
self in a number of languages ; but he says little, 
in order that he may the better observe every 
opportunity for making himself useful. 

Dean is English by birth, a bachelor, and the 
very dutiful son of an old mother still living in 
England. Dean has good eyes, not at all ironical, 
like those of many servants in great houses, behind 
whose smooth faces lie imperceptible smiles that 
speak eloquently of the emptiness and hypocrisy 
of mundane life. Dean wears no mask; his face is 
his own, and he is a somebody. 

On several occasions Mr. Wanamaker deprived 
himself of Dean's services, in order that I might 
have him for a guardian, so I learned to appreciate 
his value. From the moment my person was given 

into his charge, I belonged to him ; respectfully but 

S50 



DEAN, MY KEEPER 251 

firmly he kept watch of everything, and suffered 
no infringement of the orders he had received. 

" Dean, here is the programme of the trip, the 
time of the lectures, the hours of appointments and 
social engagements; see that it is perfectly carried 
out ! " — and the whole matter was off my shoulders. 

When I went to Washington, Dean was my in- 
separable attendant; he conducted me to the White 
House, saw me installed, and came for me at the 
end of the visit. On the train he paid me every at- 
tention, particularly that of leaving me to myself, 
while from the smoker, where he sat cultivating 
the cigar that he loves, he kept guard. If I loitered 
to talk after a lecture. Dean appeared on my hori- 
zon, and I saw the hour in his face. So it was that 
everything passed off without a hitch. 

I must confess that on two occasions I embar- 
rassed, very likely even scandalised my guardian. 
The first was at Philadelphia. The day, which was 
overcast, began with a lecture at Germantown, be- 
fore an audience exclusively feminine. At its close I 
had an animated conversation with a number of my 
listeners, which threatened to extend itself; but 
at precisely the hour appointed to set out for 
another meeting, in the centre of the town. Dean 



252 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

appeared to warn me. He led the way to the car- 
riage, and was already holding open the door, when 
one of my questioners, hoping to prolong the con- 
versation, came up and begged me to go in her 
carriage, which she promised should follow the 
precise route of the one into which Dean still per- 
sisted in wishing me to enter. Finally, not without 
reluctance, the good man resigned himself to allow 
me to accept the gracious invitation I had received. 
At first all went well, and we followed in the 
wake of the other carriage; but at a certain point 
the leader became embarrassed in a very narrow 
space between the curb and a ditch some work- 
men were digging in the middle of the street. See- 
ing that the first carriage advanced with difficulty, 
the coachman of the second turned into a side 
street, promising himself to rejoin the other at the 
earliest possible moment. When Dean became aware 
of our disappearance, he was thrown into extreme 
agitation by the possibility of lost time and a 
broken engagement, and he swore by all his gods 
that never again would he permit the least change in 
the programme. Quarter of an hour later we found 
one another again, and all was well; but I had the 
regret of having caused my faithful mentor anxiety. 



DEAN, MY KEEPER 253 

The second irregularity was a breach of decorum, 
the corpus delicti being a pair of gloves. Gloves 
are something I have always dispensed with when- 
ever there was the slightest excuse for it, but I have 
worn them, in the past, on great occasions. How- 
ever, there came a time in my life when I found that 
their presence on my hands gave me a sense of 
asphyxiation, and not being sufficiently fond of 
these useless ornaments to sacrifice my comfort to 
them, little by little they disappeared entirely, first 
from my hands, then from my pockets — in fine, for 
fifteen years I had not possessed a pair. However, 
in calling on the President of the United States, I 
believed it indispensable to wear gloves, and had ac- 
quired possession of a pair for the express purpose. 
At the moment when I should have put them on 
to go down to meet the President, impossible to find 
the gloves ! I had left them in Philadelphia ! Dean 
was visibly shocked. I said to him : " Listen ! I 
am in the house, I don't need a hat nor, strictly 
speaking, gloves either; besides, in the case of 
the author of * The Simple Life,' to be without 
them will appear rather the application of a 
principle than the consequence of absent-minded- 
ness." And I went away happy, to meet my illus- 



254 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

trious host, while Dean followed me with a look 
of consternation. 

Beyond a doubt he has forgotten all this now, but 
he deserves not to be forgotten himself, and as 
one cuts with his penknife, in the bark of a tree, a 
name that he wishes to preserve, I etch on this page, 
with especial satisfaction, the name of Dean. 



XL 

A VISION OF RIVERS 

THE night train was ploughing its fiery 
way from Chicago to Minneapolis. The 
berths had been made up, the passengers 
had disappeared, and some of them were adding 
the bass of their slumbers to the song of the wheels 
on the vibrant ribbon of the rails. With my head 
propped up on the pillows, and turned toward 
the window, I lay looking out on boundless plains 
that were fleeing behind us in the pale rays of 
moonlight, where the silver sheen of innumerable 
lakes alternated with the brownish silhouette of 
earth and wood. It is a most comfortable fashion of 
travelling and viewing the landscape, and with such 
vistas only half discerned through a white veil of 
mist, one's thought glides insensibly into memories 
or dreams. 

* * * * * 

A tremendous vision passed across my spirit, of 

which Niagara, but then seen, made the beginning. 

255 



256 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

With thunderous crashings the cataract, sea-green 
and white, precipitated its avalanches of waves and 
its whirlpools of foam into the gulf below. It was 
like a wild race for the abyss of myriads of oncom- 
ing waves, each uttering its cry as it took the 
downward leap. 

From this quenchless flow of water, for ever 
spreading out its marvellous sheets and tossing its 
spray full of dancing rainbows, little by little I 
passed to the vision of a cataract of golden grain. 
This change of scene was doubtless due to local in- 
fluences; were we not rolling over the plains where 
every year great harvests of wheat spring up and 
ripen, stretching out like great seas, with their bil- 
lowy yellow spikes.^ were we not on our way to 
Minneapolis, city of mills, where the young Mis- 
sissippi turns thousands of wheels.^ A great river, 
a river of golden wheat, was pouring out upon it 
ceaseless waves that bore in their flanks the bread 
of men. 

After this symbol of national riches, my fancy, 
half in slumber, half awake, contemplated another. 
Across the plains of far-off Texas, billowed a fan- 
tastic flood of cotton, virgin as the fields of Alpine 
heights, bearing away, even to the ends of the earth, 



A VISION OF RIVERS 257 

the wherewithal to spin threads to weave that fair 
cloth which is a joy to the eyes. 

And then the milky river of cotton was gradually 
replaced by a torrent of blood, that bespattered its 
banks as it went. This was the souvenir of Chicago's 
horrid flood. Happily it but passed and was gone, 
and already from a city buried in clouds of smoke, 
a Cyclopean city seated among the coal hills, I saw 
a stream of steel outgushing. It escaped from its 
prison with roarings like a tempest, while blue, 
green, and golden stars flashed and whirled along its 
triumphant way. From its molten heart long fiery 
serpents darted, whose rings black cyclops riveted 
to earth, in far-stretching paths of iron. And the 
flood of steel flowed on through the cities and towns, 
rising in skeleton buildings, spanning rivers and 
arms of the sea, transforming itself into tools, 
into machines, into ships — a tireless creator of 
marvels. 

At that moment, — was it the eff'ect of all this 
molten metal? — I was drawn from my reverie by 
the consciousness of a burning thirst, and fortu- 
nately there was something in the net above my 
head with which to quench it — a store of beautiful 
red-cheeked apples. As I reduced these to refresh- 



258 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

ing cider, the sense of reality came back to me ; but 
that only made it the clearer that I had been seeing 
a kind of vision, in which the prodigious wealth of 
America was imaged in rivers not down upon the 
maps. 



XLI 

"THE SIMPLE LIFE" INTERPRETED 

IN OAK 

BESIDES the Western languages into which 
" The Simple Life " has been translated, 
it has had the honour to be put into Jap- 
anese, a tongue destined to become more and more 
truly living; and Hebrew, one reputed to be dead, 
which nevertheless has remained for certain people 
their means of expression both oral and written. 
But a still more unexpected translation has been 
made of it, that has given me acute pleasure ; it has 
been interpreted in oak. 

The man to achieve this work, Mr. Stickley, of 
Syracuse, New York, is at once the editor of a mag- 
azine, the Craftsman, and an artificer who him- 
self works out the ideas it upholds. The aim Mr. 
Stickley has set himself, is the realisation of home- 
like simplicity and honest durability in furniture, 
and he is also continually planning new forms of 
dwellings, each more delectable and alluring than 

its predecessor. To build houses worthy to be the 

259 



260 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

social centre of the family, comfortable and attrac- 
tive, announcing even in their exterior the peace 
of home; to furnish them with objects at once use- 
ful, practical and capable of speaking to the heart 
— such is Mr. Stickley's high ideal. 

Finding himself thus at one with me, and having 
proclaimed himself my disciple, he wished me to see 
his work and visit his workshops. This I did, and 
was highly interested, especially in the department 
where the wood, heated in vapour baths, is made to 
give out its own colour and overspread itself with 
delicate natural tints no artificial colouring or var- 
nish could imitate. 

Mr. Stickley has as collaborator on the Crafts- 
man staff, Mr. George Wharton James, a tall man, 
somewhat pale, with black eyes and a flowing beard, 
one of the keenest and most virile personages I 
encountered in America. He has passed long years 
amid the solitudes of the Grand Canon and the 
majestic scenery along the Colorado River; he has 
lived among the Indians, observing their customs 
and industries. He has the soul of the artist and 
explorer, always originating, and puts into what- 
ever he undertakes a passionate ardour and tireless 
perseverance. 



"THE SIMPLE LIFE" 261 

Mr. Stickley's home is built after Craftsman 
plans and principles. The living-room_, adjoining 
the dining-room^ especially impresses one by its 
original aspect. It is all in wood — ceiling, walls and 
furniture, a minimum of textiles insuring a mini- 
mum of dust. From the very threshold you feel 
yourself made welcome by an air of good cheer 
and friendliness that everything seems to breathe 
forth. 

One evening, returning to the Stickley home, fa- 
tigued by travels and lectures, I dropped into a 
great chair near the fireplace, where I found my- 
self so comfortable, that doubtless I made a fer- 
vent eulogy of this refreshing seat. The chil- 
dren climbed upon my knees, stories were told, 
and a good talk followed. I remember noth- 
ing more of this evening, save that it was de- 
lightful, diverting, and full of cordiality. Mr. 
Stickley, however, took his own way of com- 
memorating it. 

After I was back again in France, one day I 
saw a mysterious case arrive at my house, large 
enough to have served Diogenes for a domicile. Out 
of its crated sides emerged the great chair of the 
Stickley home, bearing under its left arm a charm- 



262 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

ing inscription, such as one might fasten beneath 
the wing of a carrier pigeon. 

So among my translations of ** The Simple 
Life," I am so happy as to possess a chapter out of 
the unique one originated by Mr. Stickley. 



XLII 

AMERICA'S STRONGHOLDS 

THESE strongholds contain neither guns 
nor ammunition_, and yet within them lie 
the strength and authority of America, 
the weapons of attack and defence that have es- 
tablished her influence. They have their seat in the 
hearts and minds of her citizens, where they seem 
to me more stable than if founded in the rock. 

The first is religious faith, so profoundly rooted 
in the American character as to determine in some 
degree its distinctive aspect, stamping it with an im- 
print that irreligion or materialism are not able 
to efface, and that is visible even in the earnest and 
generous activity of societies like those of ethical 
culture, which hold aloof from all religious belief. 
Its influence, calm and deep, even makes itself felt 
among the indifferent or irreligious mass of the 
newly arrived, who are not yet grounded in the 
country's traditions. Even the superficial observ- 
ances of men of habit, and the studied devotion of 

hypocrites, cannot invalidate this fact, which is so 

263 



264 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

evident, so often verified in the family and in so- 
ciety, that its reality is not to be questioned. Amer- 
ica is twice religious — by inheritance and by con- 
viction. She bears within her the concentrated and 
unified force of a pious fidelity to tradition and a 
free and personal communion with the permanent 
fund of truth. Thus when the great occasions of the 
national life are celebrated by worship, or whenever 
public men invoke religious sentiment, it is not by 
way of conventionality, but it is the expression of 
actual opinion. And when the national anthem of 
the Republic is sung, be it by grown people or 
children, there is one apostrophe that vibrates with 
deeper emotion than all the others : God our King! 

The splendid vitality of her religion makes 
America just, tolerant, respectful of the belief of 
others. When the Faith is no longer anything but 
an idea and a formula, it becomes dictatorial, ex- 
clusive, intolerant toward the beliefs of others, 
scornful of whatever is unofficial. Anathema is the 
menacing weapon of old and decrepit doctrines. 

iThe second of America's strongholds is faith in 
liberty. Oh, it was not built in a day — that proud 
citadel where the starry flag of independence floats 
to the breeze — the flag of an independence not 



AMERICA'S STRONGHOLDS 265 

only accepted, but also proclaimed as a law of the 
social life; it took long years and much pains to 
build that citadel. But it is established for all time, 
and no one shall harm it. Our old Europe has states 
to show whose politics consists wholly in preventing 
the normal development of men and institutions. 
In them law takes the form of systematic prohi- 
bition; initiative is charged with being insubor- 
dination ; independence of mind is the crime of lese- 
tradition. The government's only care is to see that 
nothing new happens; the fear of liberty is not 
only the beginning but the whole of wisdom. 

But America — America believes in liberty as she 
believes in God. And as she believes in the God of 
others, in the sacred right of every one to worship 
God as he will, and form his own idea of him, so 
she believes in the Liberty of others. And her vig- 
orous faith is able to bear trials; she does not 
abandon her veneration for Liberty because hateful 
abuses have shown the disadvantages of a freedom 
too unconfined. She does not shackle honest men 
because criminals prey upon their neighbours; she 
would not mask the sun because it produces 
shadows. 

In politics, in religion, everywhere, there is ven- 



^66 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

tilation, freedom, the franchise for all and a fair 
field for individual effort. From childhood and from 
school-days, character is fostered, each is prompted 
to give out all there is in him, to dare to be, to 
declare himself in the fulness of his originality. 
Only one stipulation is made, he must respect the 
rights of his neighbours; but on this point, insist- 
ence is peremptory. America never pardons sins 
against liberty. However great and powerful those 
may be who monopolise and turn to their own profit 
the portion and the freedom of the whole, their fate 
is sealed in advance. One day or another, under the 
fire rained upon them from the citadel of Liberty, 
their bastions are reduced to dust. 

The third stronghold is good faith. Do not sup- 
pose me to say that there are no knaves in America ; 
in an international competition, she would perhaps 
establish the record for variety of sharp practices 
hitherto unrecorded; but it is only necessary to ex- 
change a few letters, enter into a few diiferent re- 
lations, converse or work together with people you 
chance to meet, to be impressed by the general re- 
spect of these people for a promise given. They 
have conscience, and of so loyal a character, that it 
comes to light in the midst of the most extraor- 



AMERICA'S STRONGHOLDS 267 

dinary machinations of corruption. What among 
many elements, and perhaps the better elements^, in 
some countries, is considered simply a form of 
politeness, a promise in the air, would be looked 
upon by them as a lack of sincerity. They think it 
kinder to make an outright refusal, than to give 
vain promises out of pity. No compliments, circum- 
locution, or lavish protestation ! The gravest affairs 
are often settled in a few words. This good faith 
has something tranquillising and infectious about it ; 
it is a perpetual appeal to seriousness on your own 
part ; it rouses confidence, and at the same time calls 
out your sense of responsibility. 

Certain expressions in frequent use, have always 
seemed to me a sort of current coin of a people's 
mentality. There is such an expression, often 
heard in the United States when you have recounted 
some happening, given information, or made known 
an opinion — " Is that so? " It is said in a confident 
and kindly tone, and at the same time is so frankly 
interrogative, that it is a most direct and powerful 
appeal to good faith. 

The fourth stronghold is respect for woman; \ 
not that exaggerated form of it into which those 
Americans fall who treat their wives like cherished 



268 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

dolls; but the feeling of deference and considera- 
tion which puts into the hearts of young men and 
old, that chivalric reverence for womanhood which 
seems to me one of the most substantial elements 
in the moral equipment of a society. 

Under the protection of this sentiment, women 
and girls move about with freedom, everywhere in 
the country. The public conscience is their best safe- 
guard, and no one fails in respect toward them. 
Thus their independence and their personality are 
better able to develop. A part of woman's bondage 
among us in France, comes from the subjection 
in which she is held by received customs. What 
a deprivation for our young girls not to be able 
to go about alone ! What an evidence of distrust 
toward the masculine portion of the population, 
or toward the girls themselves ! And what a pub- 
lic plague ! Out of it distils a poison whose fatal 
effects are to be found in our education, our litera- 
ture, and our family life. 

Nothing is more encouraging than to observe the 
moral strength infused into a people by the exist- 
ence among them of certain principles that are put 
into daily practice until they produce fixed habits. 
The best work we can do is to contribute to the 



AMERICA'S STRONGHOLDS 269 

creation in the public mind of some of these fun- 
damental convictions upon which the mentality of 
the masses depends. May those strongholds, which 
are the safeguards of vital energy, good-will, in- 
tegrity, and faith, ever stand firm ! 



XLIII 

A DINNER WITH HEROES 

AMERICA having but the nucleus of a 
standing army, it may truthfully be said 
that in times of peace her military force 
is invisible. Nothing calls attention to it; nowhere 
do we see either officers or men about. I have there- 
fore the more reason to congratulate myself upon 
having met with an opportunity to be present at a 
convention and banquet exclusively military. 

This was the fourteenth annual meeting of the 
Medal of Honor Legion, and it was held at Atlan- 
tic City. Mr. Wanamaker, who was to respond to 
the toast, " The President of the United States," 
suggested that I accompany him, were it only to 
see this city of hotels and villas, that had sprung 
up in a few years on the borders of the sea. I had 
the honour to be invited to the dinner by Major- 
General O. O. Howard, the commander of the Le- 
gion for that year. 

The armies of land and sea were both represented, 

seven generals and two hundred other officers and 

270 



A DINNER WITH HEROES 271 

privates taking their places around the table. All 
were members of the Legion, whose medal is be- 
stowed only by vote of the Congress. To receive 
it, a man must have performed an act of personal 
heroism. Here is a short passage on the subject, 
quoted from the post-prandial speech of General 
Estes: - 

** In the crash of cavalry charges, in the roar of 
artillery duels, in the impetuous assaults of infan- 
try, marvellous victories were achieved, seemingly 
beyo;Qd earthly power or possibility. Sustained by 
the moral force of numbers and encouraged by con- 
tact, touching shoulder to shoulder with comrades, 
our soldiers wrought results that gained for them 
the admiration of the world. Under radically dif- 
ferent conditions, however, in most instances, were 
the missions of the Medal of Honor men accom- 
plished. Voluntarily they went upon their ways, 
frequently alone, but always face to face with im- 
minent peril or death. To do one's duty under 
orders from which there is no escape, is one 
thing; to volunteer to do the extra-hazardous from 
a sheer sense of patriotic self-sacrifice, is entirely 
different." 

The appearance and conversation of the banquet- 



272 ]\IY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

ers had something imposing about them from their 
very simplicity. No uniforms were worn. The talk 
turned upon the past — feats of arms and common 
memories to be recalled among former comrades, 
now met again after a long separation; mention of 
the dead and of absent friends ; humourous remarks 
and mirth-provoking anecdotes. The after-dinner 
speeches had all the same cast, at once serious and 
amusing. Generally the speaker began by some 
little jovial remark, or a story that was sure to 
cause laughter. General Horatio C. King, having 
to reply to two toasts, in the absence of General 
Sickles — " The United States Army," and " Kin- 
dred Societies " — began thus : 

" Do not infer that because I have two toasts 
to respond to, I shall claim a double allowance of 
time. . . . Nor am I in the best of trim to-night. 
I think I have done little else during the day 
than promenade on the board walk, from Heinz 's 
pickles to the Agnew, propelling in one of your 
rolling chairs an amiable lady who sits opposite me. 
It is not surprising that I am somewhat fatigued, 
but I hope I may not be so stupid as the young 
man to whom his employer said : * I think you are 
the stupidest fellow in New York ; I do not believe 



A DINNER WITH HEROES 273 

you even knew that Methusaleh is dead.' * Dead? ' 
said the fellow, ' dead? Why I didn't even know 
he was sick.' " 

It is entirely natural that the patriotic fibre 
should be one to vibrate oft^nest at such a gather- 
ing, but American patriotism, even that of her war- 
riors, has nothing offensive or aggressive about it. 
Yet they never tire of extolling their country, and 
with reason. Listen to General Mulholland, reply- 
ing to the toast, " Our Country " : 

" I once heard of a miner who fell down a deep 
pit. His companions on the surface, paralysed with 
fright at the accident, called down, * Johnny, are 
you killed ? ' And a voice came up from the depths, 
* No, I am not killed, but I am knocked speechless.' 

" When contemplating the magnitude of the sub- 
ject that I ain called on to answer for, I feel like 
the unfortunate miner — ' knocked speechless.' . . . 

" As we sit here to-night and listen to the rush 
of the waves, I am reminded of a scene of my boy- 
hood. Fifty-four years ago last month, August, 
1850, together with my father and mother, I was on 
board of a sailing vessel passing from New York 
to Egg Harbor, and our vessel was becalmed for 
a couple of days, off this coast. . . . There was 



274 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

nothing here on that day except a lighthouse, and 
sand, and flocks of sea-gulls. . . . Now, in the short 
period of fifty-four years, an ordinary lifetime, a 
great city has arisen here, with magnificent build- 
ings and large population, and this city by the sea 
is typical of the wonderful development of our 
country in all directions. 

" At the time of the Revolution, we had thirteen 
little States along the Atlantic, with three million 
inhabitants. When I bathed off these shores in 1850, 
we had twenty-five States, with a population of 
twenty-five millions. At the epoch of the War of 
Secession, the country numbered thirty-two States, 
with thirty-two million inhabitants, of whom four 
millions were slaves. Now we have forty-five States, 
a population of over eighty millions, and not a slave 
in the country. Ah, we ought not only to love our 
native land, but to be proud of it. 

" * Our Country ' — a nation practically without a 
standing army, and yet so strong and so powerful 
as to command respect and admiration from all 
other nations. It would seem as though the Al- 
mighty had called our country into being in order 
to revolutionise the world and the government of 
nations, and to prove to mankind that the true form 



A DINNER WITH HEROES 275 

of government is that derived from the consent of 
the governed. 

" There are those among us who look to the 
future with dark forebodings, and tremble for our 
free institutions. True it is that our municipal gov- 
ernments are not all that could be desired, and tales 
of corruption are, unfortunately, but too well 
founded; . . . but notwithstanding the faults of 
our system of government, those who love our 
country have faith in the future." 

Accentuating the pacific note that characterises 
American patriotism. Rear Admiral George W. 
Melville declared: 

** We do not want a Navy to make war, but to 
preserve the peace. It is a hackneyed aphorism, in 
time of peace prepare for war, but in these modern 
days it is necessary in maintaining the peace, to be 
ready for war at all times. This readiness is the 
insurance we pay to preserve the peace, and it is 
cheaper in money and men than going to war." 

General Theodore S. Peck, in response to the 
toast, " The Women," said: 

" Upon women in times of war the victor and the 
vanquished have always leaned, and from them 
have gained their supply of the wonderful courage 



276 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

of which the history of the world is full. In all the 
wars in which the men of this country have battled 
for existence and a home, the noble, loving women 
not only gave their all (fathers, husbands, brothers 
and lovers), but by their prayers, work, and sacri- 
fice of every comfort, as well as with an uncertain 
future, nerved the men to battle in such a way that 
no suffering or hardship was too great for them 
to endure. 

" In peace as well as in war, the women of the 
United States of America stand for all that is 
good and true, and are as ready to make their sac- 
rifices in the future to uphold our nation and its 
glorious flag, as they were in the past." 

Replying to the toast, " The President of the 
United States," Mr. John Wanamaker, recalling the 
assassination of President McKinley at Buffalo, 
said: 

" A country from sea to sea, and from the moun- 
tains to the Gulf, shook and shuddered at the aw- 
ful martyrdom upon the altar of liberty, and all 
eyes turned to the young man who stood next to 
the grave of the great McKinley. In the solemnity 
of a great crisis, conscious of the overwhelming 
responsibility, with great dignity, surrouiided by 



A DINNER WITH HEROES 277 

the old counsellors of McKinley, full of the spirit 
and policy of his administration, this young man 
with the fear of God in his heart and love for all 
the people in his soul, bowed his heart to God's 
will, and bowed his shoulders to whatever burden 
it brought with it. The years of study and the 
months of the mountains, gave him a well-stored 
mind, large health, and a ready hand, and the 
heroic soldier of San Juan, was sealed by the trust 
and homage of the people, as the executor of the 
lamented William McKinley, and still more, the 
administrator of the will of the people of the 
United States." 

To all the stirring echoes of this evening, that 
remain with me to show how sane and vigorous this 
patriotism is, at once pacific and militant, hostile 
to all militarism, and yet thoroughly martial, I am 
going to add a few lines for the purpose of em- 
phasising the religious side. For the religious note 
was not wanting in any of the speeches of the 
evening. I have chosen out specially this passage 
relating to military virtue, from the speech of 
General Estes: 

" Valour, patriotism, honour, manhood, do not 
die. They do not cease at the cannon's mouth or 



278 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AIMERICA 

ebb forth with the life blood on the battle-field; 
they are not laid away with the body as dust to dust 
and ashes to ashes. They are not of the earth, 
earthy. They belong to the soul ; they are attributes 
of spirit. And spirit is divine; it is the breath of 
God; it wears the likeness of the infinite, and like 
its divine Progenitor, it is eternal. Valour, patriot- 
ism, honour, manhood, are eternal." 

When we left the banqueting hall, the ocean was 
singing its hoary chant outside, and it mingled in 
my remembrance with the valiant words I had heard 
fall from the lips of these brave defenders of a 
Republic without barracks or fortress. These hours 
passed among former companions of Lincoln and 
Grant, had the effect upon me of a baptism of fire. 
Something of the soul of these warriors had entered 
into mine. How right they were in thus apostro- 
phising their fatherland: 

" ' Our Country/ destined in all the ages of the 
future to be a bright example of high civilisation, 
truly a light to illumine the world, ordained for 
the upraising and betterment, not only of our own 
people, but of the whole human family." * 
* General Mulholland. 



XLIV 
AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 

WHEN I had my first vision of Titanic 
America, personified in its prodigious 
buildings, its commercial undertakings, 
the fever of its daily affairs, its gigantic manufac- 
tories, the luxurious living of some of its social 
classes and their costly eccentricities, I saw myself, 
with my ideal of simplicity, not as an anachronism 
— for simplicity is eternal ; it was before the compli- 
cated life, and will be after that is done — but I saw 
myself in a situation like that of a lark which, in- 
stead of soaring above golden harvests, under the 
great dome of the blue sky, should sing its song 
in smoky cities, in gloomy caverns, or — what is an- 
other sort of misfortune — in a cage with golden 
bars. The contrast was violent and painful; surely 
I was bringing with me the message of a way of 
life very different from that revealed in this forced 
civilisation, glittering with wealth or tarnished with 
squalid poverty, that seemed to be rushing with all 

its might toward the conquest of material welfare. 

279 



280 IVIY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

Some evenings^ when I faced an exclusive audience 
brilliant with elaborate toilets and gleaming jew- 
els, a deep sadness penetrated my soul at the idea 
that what was the very substance and marrow of my 
thought, might be serving as a moment's distrac- 
tion for a jaded curiosity. 

* * * * * 

But, getting down to the heart of things, I found 
that my pessimistic impressions could not stand in 
the face of more encouraging experiences. Among 
the waifs and strays of the Bowery mission, as well 
as with the flower of American society, following 
a method that has become a second nature to me, I 
went straight to the human centre. Luxury and want 
are alike surface accidents, the man is to be sought 
underneath them; we must not dwell upon super- 
ficialities, but turn straightway to the substance, and 
the fundamental substance of " the better Amer- 
ica " is simplicity. 

Certain English, German, and French journals 
tell us that the distinctive badge of American life 
is artificiality; but that is to judge men's hearts by 
the coats they affect, and their ideas by the cut of 
their hair. And some critics have held that the in- 
terest taken by the American public in " The Sim- 



AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 281 

pie Life " and its ideas^ is pure snobbery, the result 
of caprice, without seriousness or sincerity. All this 
comes from a partial and imperfect judgment. A 
man's deformity is not his person ; a facial blemish 
is not a face. An artificiality that is very obvious, 
and from many points of view offensive, floats, it 
is true, like froth, on the surface of American life; 
but the sea-foam is not the sea. Pilgrim of a day 
on the American shores, I went there with eyes and 
heart wide open, drinking in at all the pores of my 
mental and moral sensibilities those signs which the 
habit of observing men has taught me to discern. I 
looked at things as a man does who sees a country 
for the first time, and is prepared to receive shocks 
the more painful or experience emotions the purer 
and more joyous on that account. 

Yet I was not to observe as a stranger, for it 
never enters my mind so to consider myself or any- 
one else; from my standpoint, nobody, nothing, is 
foreign. I do indeed belong to my own country, and 
I belong to it for good and all; but I also belong 
to that great Family out of love for which we wish 
all nations and all men well. With this disposition, 
I was, it seems to me, in the best of conditions to 
observe justly, and here I give my impressions. 



282 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

The artificial and complicated life that prevails 
in America to a disquieting degree, does not belong 
to the American character, it is accidental; but it 
constitutes a danger, and one of the greatest dan- 
gers the country could run; for in allowing herself 
to be drawn into a life of superficiality, a life for- 
getful of the soul and scornful of simplicity, 
America, perhaps more than any other nation, is 
unfaithful to her very nature, that higher nature 
wherein lies the secret of her power and the ex- 
planation of her existence among the nations — the 
very sinew and spring of her splendid vitality. 
This is the fact that struck me in my quality of 
friend; and perceiving the danger, it was with 
brotherly distress that I searched for all the good 
signs which might lead one to hope that it would 
be removed. An evil recognised is often half van- 
quished, and when by close observation a man per- 
ceives that he runs the risk of missing the aim of 
his life through his irregular way of living it, he 
is very near to changing his methods. Ships follow 
their pilots, and their pilots follow the compass; 
nations have for compass their faith and their 
ideals. America's true ideal is the realisation of a 
beautiful life, inspired by concern for the best 



AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 283 

things; of a broadly human life, energetic and 
benevolent, powerful and pacific, in which con- 
science never loses its rights. Beneath the restless- 
ness that has taken possession of the whole great 
territory, a secret trouble is clearly perceptible, not 
equally so in all cases, of course, especially among 
the new and imperfectly assimilated masses of the 
population, that enter as a great disturbing factor 
into the life of the whole ; but wherever we encoun- 
ter representative Americans, men who love their 
country and have a care for the public welfare, this 
secret uneasiness comes to light. It has no similarity 
to the senile perturbation which class egoism and 
the fear of innovations inspire in peoples long 
established; but it is akin to that amiable and salu- 
tary fear of forfeiting esteem, which animates gen- 
erous youth, and makes itself evident even through 
youth's impetuosity. 

/ In what is the best of her, America loves the life 
that is genuine and substantial, the life in which 
the things most highly valued are moral qualities, 
uprightness, energy and kindness, as well as those 
fundamental family sentiments that are the cement 
of society. She knows that a nation lives neither by 
gold, nor by armies, nor by industrial prosperity. 



284 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

but that all these things, in so far as they are good 
and legitimate, are conducive to certain fundamen- 
tal virtues without which humanity could never 
advance. /if the source of these virtues be quenched, 
the whole splendid exterior of a civilisation soon 
becomes nothing more than a luxuriant fruitage 
that is doomed to decay. 

This is what the best of the American people 
feel so poignantly at the present time; and hap- 
pily these " best *' are not an over-refined and scat- 
tered minority, lost in the midst of decadent masses 
that no longer possess any motive forces save the 
ferments of their own decomposition; they are a 
countless and compact phalanx of upright men, 
clear-sighted and resolute, impressible and fearless, 
possessing, in a word, all the qualities of a power- 
ful leaven that is capable of penetrating and leaven- 
ing the whole. 

These elements of public health belong to the 
old and authentic tradition of American democracy, 
wherein respect for the past, a normal conservatism, 
and courage and ardour for the future, are mingled 
in such happy proportions. I was never better aware 
of this than when I crossed the threshold of Inde- 
pendence Hall, in Philadelphia, one of the national 



AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 285 

sanctuaries. Built at the very seat of the cradle of 
American liberties, and dating from the heroic 
period of American history_, it saw those assemblies 
in which, amid the most thrilling events, the future 
of the American nation was decided. Surrounded 
by objects, insignificant in themselves, that have 
become popular relics; within the walls that once 
listened to the speech of the fathers and now mur- 
mur it in the ears of the children; before portraits 
of the men who made America, I felt the most in- 
tense religious emotion. I seemed to be treading on 
sacred ground. Some of the purest treasures of the 
new humanity had been elaborated there, in the 
crucible of a great struggle, in the furnace of situa- 
tions in which men and nations are purified like 
gold. And the whole environment was that of a 
patriarchal, a heroic simplicity. Out of the elements 
there collected into a focus, the heart of America 
is made, and when once you grasp this clew, you 
may follow it everywhere throughout the web of 
the national life. 

This tradition is not a pious souvenir, a sort of 
lifeless relic, to be brought out of its shrine on great 
occasions only; it has a part in all the acts and all 
the interests of life. It is a leitmotif, constantly re- 



286 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

appearing in the great symphony in which the soul 
of the people is interpreted. And this national dis- 
position explains the effect " The Simple Life '* 
produced in the midst of Americans. What the 
President did for this book, he did in the character 
of a typical American, and if his word, beloved and 
authoritative as it is, had in this case so profound 
and persistent an echo, it was because the minds of 
his fellow-countrymen were good ground for the 
reception of the message. In spite of all appear- 
ances to the contrary, both by tradition and by tem- 
perament America loves simplicity. She knows what 
she owes to it; she feels that if she should escape 
from the influence of this vital and regenerative 
force, the sceptre would depart from her. She takes 
account of the fact that young and powerful nations 
become contaminated with startling rapidity when 
in contact with the corruption to which long habi- 
tude has accustomed older civilisations. 
/ Her best traditions, and the best of her sons to- 
day, put faith in the power of simplicity, while her 
peculiar genius and her tastes incline her the same 
way. In all these things, America has an assurance 
of victory in the moral crisis of the present time. 
And in addition, the education of her youth rests 



AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 287 

upon principles and methods that inspire the mind 
with disdain for vanities and sophisticated pleas- 
ures. If she brings about a reaction, as she might 
do, and as she is doing already in no small degree, 
against the excessive repute that has been given to 
wealth, and against the social usurpation that tends 
to make it king instead of the servant it should be ; 
if she takes every opportunity to rehabilitate and 
honour the men of modest means who know how 
to attain independence and happiness by limiting 
their desires; if the conviction spreads that pomp 
and state are a kind of slavery, that ostentation is 
a proof of stupidity, and irrational expenditure a 
social error, there is no doubt that the future be- 
longs to the better America. 

For her the message of simplicity is not a re- 
actionary cry; no one who takes the trouble to 
understand its significance, mistakes that. He sees 
in it an appeal to discernment and vigilance, to a 
regard for the fundamental hygienic laws proper 
to the human creature. We are consumed by our 
parasitic needs, that we have multiplied without 
reason or limit, and by those ideas, unbefitting men, 
which tend to make us look upon ourselves as 
ephemeral; as dust returning to dust; as called to a 



288 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

life of the most incessant pleasure possible, which 
we may seek to attain by any means, however barba- 
rous and anti-fraternal. The simple life appeals to 
us to rid ourselves of these parasites, to shake off 
this dire and unnatural mental state, and to restore 
to the place of honour the true semblance of our- 
selves. This is the cry of alarm I raised in America, 
the cry I raise everywhere. 

It matters little what country we inhabit, what 
language we speak, what religious and social faith 
we profess, we are all in need of conversion to sim- 
plicity; we all risk losing our life by the absurd 
fashion in which we order it. When secondary 
things are ranked with essentials, the artificial and 
conventional with the natural and real, all the out- 
ward splendour with which our life may be sur- 
rounded is only a magnificent setting for nullity. 

Political, religious and social institutions ; science, 
industry and education; the whole sum of human 
toil and effort, should contribute to make man more 
broadly human; but unless we take care, all these 
things, instead of being instrumental for the reali- 
sation of more j ustice, and the introduction of more 
order and happiness into the brotherhood of men, 
become a hindrance and a bondage, and man sue- 



AMERICAN SIMPLICITY 289 

cumbs under the weight of his own deeds^ weak- 
ened and degraded by his own misdirected forces, 
his instincts turned to vices, his knowledge to an 
agent of death, his faith to fanaticism, his well- 
being to degeneracy, — every function, private or 
public, diverted from its end. 

People often assume to tell us that we are 
descendants of the ape, and there are some who 
take a shocking pleasure in the idea, while others 
find it distressing beyond measure. For myself, I 
think it no matter for either gratification or disturb- 
ance. I have somewhere said that I would willingly 
be an ant, if I might be an ant after God's heart. 
The paths of the Eternal stretch from the dust to 
the Spirit. The distance is tremendous, and there 
must needs be many humble stages on the way; is 
there anything strange about that? It matters little 
to me what path I follow, if only it lead upward. 

What we need to be concerned about is not an 
ape at the beginning of the line — our problematical 
ancestor, at most — but an ape at the end, a hideous 
product to be evolved in time out of our errors, by 
" natural selection." To descend from apes and be- 
come men, is progress, and what progress ! but to 
be humanity, to have given birth to Moses, to Plato, 



290 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

to Christ; to have overcome the elements, chained 
the thunder to our chariots and made the lightning 
our messenger, and then to return to the level of 
the brutes, in the ferocity of our feelings, the low- 
ness of our instincts, the obscurity of our intellects 
— what a casting out into darkness ! But this could 
not be! Let us raise our resolutions to the height 
of another destiny. Humanity sometimes loses her 
way, but her thirst always brings her back to the 
pure springs of the true and simple life. 



XLV 

ADIEUX TO WASHINGTON 

THE twenty-second of November was the 
date fixed for my return to Washington, 
when I was to give a public lecture under 
the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion. It was to take place in a theatre on Lafayette 
Square, near the White House, at half -past four in 
the afternoon. On the evening of the same day, my 
French lecture was to be given in the White House 
parlours. 

I arrived in Washington at about eleven in the 
morning. The French Ambassador and Madame 
Jusserand had arranged an informal luncheon, for 
us to meet a few friends. It was a special pleasure 
to me to cross the threshold of the little embassy, 
and find myself in a house where the pictures and 
a greater part of the furnishings recalled France. 
The affectionate graciousness of my host and hostess 
was added to this charm of the distant fatherland. 

During my September visit in the city. President 

291 



292 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

Roosevelt had said, that on the occasion of this 
afternoon lecture he himself would introduce me 
to the audience, but I had not dared count upon 
such an honour, so far did it surpass my hopes, 
and I had never since made any allusion to this 
notable promise. On my way to Lafayette Square, 
I thought over the reasons which might well pre- 
vent the President from being present; but as I 
approached the theatre, I saw that it was surround- 
ed by a cordon of police of colossal build — those 
American policemen, veritable towers of strength, 
whose size alone is an element of good order, and 
who rise above the crowds like rocks above the waves 
— and I thought, " These giants are not here on 
my account." In the lobby I encountered some 
members of the Association who were in charge of 
the lecture. " The President has just telephoned 
that he will be here in ten minutes," they said, and 
in reality, at the end of a few moments, he arrived, 
with the words: "I said I would come, and here 
lam!" 

I shall not describe what I experienced while 
silently listening to the words of him whom, a few 
days before, America had retained at his post by 
a majority so tremendous as to be unequalled in 



ADIEUX TO WASHINGTON 293 

the annals of the world. He spoke like the head 
of a house surrounded by his own family. His 
words, simple and concise, issued in that clearness 
of form that elementary truth takes on when it is 
interpreted by a right-minded man. 

Many American orators speak without gesture, 
maintaining a fixed attitude, which does not fail 
to have its impressive side, though so at variance 
with our habit in France; but the President is a 
very animated speaker, his gestures sometimes be- 
coming particularly vehement. 

You feel that this Chief of State is moved by 
an ideal at once elevated and practical, which he 
aims to show, in some one, of its aspects, on every 
favourable occasion. He possesses in a very high de- 
gree the faculty of translating the feelings, the 
ideas and the laws of life, into a universal lan- 
guage. Every sentence he utters, every example he 
cites, bears marks of the higher humanity, that 
humanity which without insignia, or privilege of 
race, nation, or class, makes the essential substance 
of each one of us. But there is nothing vague or 
indecisive about this thought of his, whose luminous 
simplicity make its expression limpid; and it is 
always practical and pertinent, and though rich in 



294 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

local colour, the human ideal is always showing 
forth under the national ideal. 

I should have been glad to reproduce here, in 
full, the President's speech, as it was published 
next morning in all the American papers; but the 
very terms in which the evidences of his sympathy 
were expressed, compel me to refrain. In my heart 
I preserve a warm and grateful remembrance of 
it, as one of the finest rewards of my life. 



XLVI 
THE WHITE HOUSE LECTURE 



T 



■^HAT evening I arrived at the White 
House a good half-hour before the time 
of the lecture, and was ushered into one 
of the parlours, where Mrs. Roosevelt appeared al- 
most immediately, and soon afterward the Presi- 
dent. Made acquainted with the subject of conver- 
sation, Mr. Roosevelt recounted that both Mrs. 
Roosevelt and he had French blood in their veins, 
being descendants of Huguenots who were driven 
from their mother country by the hardships of 
religious persecution. 

Meanwhile the guests, to the number of a hun- 
dred, had been assembling in an adjacent parlour, 
where I was the last to be introduced. Of all the 
feelings I experienced at the moment, patriotic 
emotions were uppermost. To be able to speak of 
my country, in my mother tongue, before an audi- 
ence so choice, was a grateful and supreme satis- 
faction, and I began my lecture with the President's 

295 



296 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

kind words in my mind: "You cannot tell us too 
many good things about France." 

There exists a very old classification of peoples^ 
resembling that zoological one for the use of little 
children, in which every animal is summarily quali- 
fied by a single word, the tiger being ferocious, the 
donkey stupid, the dog faithful, and the cat treach- 
erous. To those who know and love animals, this 
condensed science is much in need of revision; but 
to uproot prejudices is sometimes more difficult 
than to remove mountains. Ethnology, as accepted 
by the crowd, has decreed that certain peoples 
should be hypocritical, others of slow wit, others 
worshippers of money. The French are light, and 
fond of a quarrel. Our literature abroad and our 
politics at home seem to give some colour to this 
opinion; but it is, as a characterisation, incorrect, 
and that is what it rested with me to show. We, 
as well as other nations, have qualities by which we 
gain upon becoming known to intelligent and well- 
disposed citizens of other nations. To point out 
these qualities is not a display of national vanity, 
but a service rendered to the general good. It is 
contrary to international interest and understand- 
ing, that peoples should be best known to each other 



THE WHITE HOUSE LECTURE 297 

by their defects; if they knew each other a little 
better by their good qualities, there would be more 
grounds for mutual confidence. There ought to be 
established an international order of the Knights 
of Goodwill, whose office it should be to recount 
of each nation the best there is to tell. 

A little experience and reflection will show us that 
man does not live by his maladies, but by what is 
sound in his constitution, and that peoples cannot 
live by their vices; it is by their virtues that they 
survive. France not only exists, but she has a per- 
manent influence in the world. Her genius, her 
labour, her ideas, her taste, enter as an essential 
factor in the universal collaboration of nations, and 
evidently the position we hold is not due to our 
lightness. Then there must be something else in 
us, and that is what it was my purpose to search 
out and bring into prominence. 

Back of the superficial and excitable nation, as 
it appears at a distance, or is reflected in sensa- 
tional novels and "yellow" journals, there is an- 
other nation, quiet, laborious, studious — an TJn- 
Jcnown France, that goes far toward redeeming the 
crying defects of the France known, alas ! but too 
well. As a guest might do, seated at night by a 



298 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

friendly hearth, I thought fit, by the hearth of the 
American nation, to speak of this France. 

I told of our family life, that is so genuine; of 
our toil and our thrift; of those courageous little 
households in our great cities, with which the for- 
eigner isn't acquainted and cannot be, but which it 
has been my privilege to see in such great numbers. 
I spoke of our peasants and day-labourers, making 
a comparison, for example, between matinal Paris, 
that the French themselves know so little, and noc- 
turnal Paris, that foreigners know all too well. 

A modest frequenter of the Pasteur Institute, a 
friend of the lamented M. Duclaux, and of many 
other of my country's scientific investigators, I de- 
scribed their unobtrusive life, opposed to all noto- 
riety; and I gave a glimpse into those cherished 
attic rooms of our laborious students, which Paris 
contains in so great number, where the scientific 
wealth of the future is slumbering. 

Then I thought it would be interesting to give 
a sketch of the great educational enterprises in 
the various grades of public instruction, which the 
Third Republic has undertaken, in the midst of 
countless obstacles, and with such admirable abne- 
gation. And in passing, I framed in this setting a 



THE WHITE HOUSE LECTURE 299 

picture of one of the best teachers of all the ages, 
Felix Pecaut^ to whom public homage has been 
rendered at the nation's tribune, but whose finest 
eulogy is the vital impression left deep in the hearts 
of his disciples. 

Having long gathered documents concerning so- 
cial work in France, I drew attention to the things 
private initiative has achieved in this domain. Then 
I thought fit to mention that enterprise for the 
promotion of intercourse and collaboration among 
men of goodwill in the different social grades, that 
began to take shape twenty years ago in a series 
of mutualities that have brought mental and man- 
ual workers into contact with one another. Among 
the pioneers of this fine undertaking, I mentioned 
the late M. Fallot, sketching the life of this valiant 
son of Ban-de-la-Roche, in whom the spirit of the 
great Oberlin seemed to be reincarnate. 

Could I omit to mention an undertaking, unique 
of its kind, that has succeeded in establishing, in 
the heart of our troubled and discordant time, a 
meeting-ground for courteous discussion and mu- 
tual information among well-disposed men coming 
from all the horizons of thought? Here I spoke 
of the " Union for Moral Action," that broad and 



300 MY IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA 

comprehensive work which has in it the possibilities 
of a splendid contribution to the moral progress of 
France. 

In shorty for fully an hour I had the privilege 
of speaking of the serious France that toils and 
acts beneath the troubled exterior of our public 
life; of a France calm and eager for good under- 
standing among her citizens^ seeking for unity of 
intention in diversity of origin and of parties; 
building her city in a constant effort toward justice 
and goodwill. 

■5f * * * * 

The lecture was followed by a very cordial recep- 
tion, happy ending of a happy day, and fit impres- 
sion with which to close these recollections, 
•x- ■x- * -x- ■x- 

The first of December I found myself on board 
the Savoie, surrounded by a multitude of friends 
who had come to wish me bon voyage. The last to 
leave the deck, when the vessel was already being 
loosened from her moorings, was Mr. Wanamaker. 
With flocks of sea-gulls, symbolic of the wishes 
and remembrances that accompany the voyager, 
spreading their great wings above our tumultuous 
wake, I sailed away, feeling that I had been visit- 



THE WHITE HOUSE LECTURE 301 

ing one of the countries where the most substantial 

of Humanity's resources are in store. 

* -x- * * * 

Now our ship turns toward the rising sun^ and 
the farther we sail^ the more clearly do loved faces 
emerge out of the shadow of distance, and thoughts 
of home take shape; but over all, with more and 
more insistence as the hours pass by, looms the 
image of the Patrie. 

Of old, France helped to establish the Govern- 
ment of the United States; now, with how many 
problems and obstacles is her beautiful ideal of 
democracy, victorious across the sea, still forced to 
struggle at home ! If moral aid and inspiring exam- 
ple come to her from nations once fructified by her 
genius, it is only just; when the harvests are ripen- 
ing is the moment to recall and honour the sower. 

In the glimmers of thy beacons, shining afar in 
the ocean night, I salute thee, beloved France, in- 
defatigable sower, that no inclemency of sky and 
no rude season has ever spared, yet who art ever 
found among the pioneers of the better future, thy 
hand on the plough, and thy forehead crowned 
with hope! 

THE END 



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